Trivia for
Rocky Balboa (2006) More at IMDb Pro »

• According to her gravestone, Adrian Balboa's death was on 11 January 2002.
  
  
• The film contains flashbacks from every Rocky film except Rocky V (1990).
  
  
• This film was shipped to theaters under the code name "Nobody Parties".
  
  

• This is the only Rocky sequel not to contain a recap from it's predecessor.
  
  
• Pedro Lovell reprises his role as Spider Rico, the boxer defeated by Rocky in the opening scene of Rocky (1976).
  
  
• During preproduction, as the filmmakers tried to find a good location to shoot the fight, they met with constant obstacles - every suitable arena was booked out. Sylvester Stallone knew that HBO had an upcoming PPV event with Bernard Hopkins taking on Jermaine Taylor in the main event, at the Mandalay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. Stallone suggested that the film could piggyback the real event, using the real HBO format, the real crowd, even the real press conference setup. As such, the press conference scene was shot only moments after the real press conference with Hopkins and Taylor, whilst the scene when Rocky walks through the curtain and down to the ring was shot using the real Hopkins/Taylor crowd. Stallone was hoping that the crowd wouldn't boo or cause any problems, but as he made his way to the ring (as Rocky), the whole building gave him a standing ovation and began to chant 'ROCKY, ROCKY'. The crowd was never told to stand up or to chant - they had done it completely on their own, and according to the filmmakers, by far the biggest cheer of the night was for Rocky, not for any of the real fighters.
  
  
• The computer simulation fight was based on one which took place in 1969 which pitted Muhammad Ali against Rocky Marciano. Every possible scenario was considered and filmed and the computer decided that Marciano would win in the 13th round. When told of the result, Ali retorted "that computer was made in Alabama".
  
  
• According to an interview with Mark S. Driscoll of Look! Effects, one of the fight scenes uses backgrounds from an earlier fight which Sylvester Stallone actually attended prior to filming. He said it should be possible to see Stallone (as himself) in the audience while Stallone (as Rocky) is in the ring.
  
  
• This is the only film in the Rocky series which actually plays Bill Conti's "Gonna Fly Now" over the closing credits.
  
  
• Assuming standard sized gym weights, during the "Gonna Fly Now" workout scene, Rocky was benching 365lbs, snatch & lifting 315lbs and squatting 495lbs.
  
  
• According to Sylvester Stallone, the shot of Rocky standing alone on the museum steps before the second set of end credits was actually filmed without him even knowing.
  
  
• In the scene in the meat factory between Paulie and Rocky, Paulie asks if Rocky is angry because they took down his statue, a possible reference to the real life controversy which surrounded the statue. During the making of Rocky III (1982), a 9ft tall, 1500-pound bronze statue designed by A. Thomas Schomberg was placed at the top of the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Arts. After filming wrapped, Sylvester Stallone tried to donate the statue to the museum but they said they didn't want it, sparking a huge debate between the Museum and the City's Art Commission about what constituted 'art'. The museum claimed the statue was nothing more than a "movie prop", and didn't want it. Local people were outraged, and the statue was ultimately placed in front of the Wachovia Spectrum in South Philadelphia. It was later returned to the Art Museum for the filming of Rocky V (1990), after which it was again moved to the front of the Spectrum.
  
  
• According to Sylvester Stallone in his DVD Commentary, he did consider having his real-life son Sage Stallone reprise the role of Robert "Rocky" Jr. which he had played in Rocky V (1990), but he decided against it because he feared people would read too much into the personal conflict between Rocky and Robert regarding Robert's belief that he is "living in his father's shadow".
  
  
• In his DVD commentary, Sylvester Stallone explains that some of Rocky's dialog with Marie (Geraldine Hughes) was improvised on-set. For example, for the scene where he installs the light bulb, Stallone had no idea the bulb would be so bright, and his reaction to the glare is completely genuine. The line to Marie about meetings Steps' father on a cruise ship was another improvised line, as was his observation that he's a better dancer then the average bear. Stallone was so surprised with himself for coming up with this comparison, that his next line, "Where that came from, I don't know", was also improvised.
  
  
• Sylvester Stallone trained for six months to get in shape for his role.
  
  
• Sylvester Stallone explains in Skill vs. Will: The Making of 'Rocky Balboa' (2007) (V) that Milo Ventimiglia landed the role of Robert Jr. in part because of the similarities between their mouths; if you look closely, you can see that Ventimiglia's mouth hooks down in much the same way as Stallone's does.
  
  
• Sylvester Stallone initially wanted Roy Jones Jr. for the role of Mason Dixon. Stallone claims that he left 31 phone messages for Jones but never received a response.
  
  
• Carl Weathers refused to allow his image to be used in the film, and as such, a stand-in had to be used to recreate the archive footage of Rocky fighting Apollo Creed.
  
  
• Although it is not included as a deleted scene on the DVD, Sylvester Stallone has said that a scene was filmed in which Rocky sees a woman that looks like Adrian in the building where Robert Jr. works. He follows her for a while before he realizes it is not Adrian. Stallone decided to cut the scene because he felt that Rocky's loneliness had already been established enough, and that this scene was overkill.
  
  
• Andy (Don Sherman), the bartender from Rocky (1976), Rocky III (1982) and Rocky V (1990) can briefly be seen in this film sitting in the background during the scene where Angie (Angela Boyd) is cheering on Rocky in the bar. Andy originally had a more sizable role, but the scene was cut from the finished film.
  
  
• Before the fight between Dixon and Balboa, Mason Dixon is introduced as being from Tampa, Florida. Antonio Tarver (the real-life boxer who plays Dixon) is also from Tampa.
  
  
• This is the only movie in the Rocky series not to begin with Rocky in a boxing match.
  
  
• "Take You Back", the song which opens the film, was first performed by Frank Stallone on a street corner in the original Rocky.
  
  
• Composer Bill Conti only wrote one original piece of music for the film; Marie's theme.
  
  
• The very last scene to be shot was Rocky's sprint up the steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Sylvester Stallone purposely left this shot until the end because he knew it would be such an emotional experience due to the iconic nature of the scene, and he felt it was a good way for him to say goodbye to the character. As he puts it himself, "that run is the distillation of the entire Rocky experience."
  
  
• All of the arena material was filmed in HD to match the HBO PPV look; the rest of the film was shot on standard 35mm.
  
  
• After the release of the film, critics hailed the fighting scenes as the most realistic in the entire Rocky saga. On the DVD, Sylvester Stallone hypothesizes that a major factor in this realism was that he used realistic sound-effects for punches. When a punch lands in the film, the sound used was a real punch, whereas in previous films, sounds used for punches had included shotgun blasts, broken bottles, chains and baseball bats hitting wet leather.
  
  
• The bout between Rocky and Dixon was filmed with actors Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Tarver really hitting one another. According to Stallone, not a single punch in the fight was pulled, and every hit on film was a hit for real. Furthermore, Stallone has revealed that the scene where Rocky is knocked down for a 9 count, and is trying to get to his feet by taking hold of the rope, but is having difficulty focusing on it, is completely genuine; Tarver really did knock him down, and he really couldn't get up.
  
  
• The computer fight was shot with Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Tarver wearing motion capturing outfits.
  
  
• Antonio Tarver (the real light heavyweight champion at the time of production) trained for 5 weeks prior to the film and had to put on 25 pounds.
  
  
• All of the Rocky training scenes in the gym were shot in one 17-hour shoot.
  
  
• The film was shot in 38 days. The very first thing to be shot was the fight between Dixon and Rocky. This was done because Sylvester Stallone's training (which had been going on for six months) had to stop once the film went into production and he began to concentrate on directing. If the fight had been left until the end of the schedule, Stallone would not have been in as good shape as he was at the start.
  
  
• On the DVD commentary, Sylvester Stallone says he based the idea of Rocky owning a restaurant and spending his time telling old fight stories on former world heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey.
  
  
• The film was partially inspired by the George Foreman-Michael Moorer fight in 1994. Foreman had formerly retired from boxing in 1977, but in 1987, the 38 year old had decided to make a comeback. This comeback culminated in 1994 when the, by then, 45 year old Foreman, challenged the 26 year old world heavyweight champion Michael Moorer. The fight took place on November 5 in Las Vegas. For nine round, Moorer toyed with Foreman, easily out-boxing him. Entering the tenth round, Foreman was trailing on all scorecards. However, in the tenth round, completely out of nowhere, Foreman landed a vicious shot to Moorer's chin, knocking the younger man out and scoring a TKO victory, becoming the oldest world heavyweight champion in history.
  
  
• As he had done with the previous five films, writer Sylvester Stallone incorporated a great deal of biographical material into this film. As Stallone himself explains on the DVD commentary, to a certain extent, Mason Dixon is based on himself; a man who has made some bad decisions after taking advice from people who didn't really have his best interests at heart.
  
  
• The original title of the film was Puncher's Chance.
  
  

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