Ippolito Cast as Young Stallone in I Play Rocky

Anthony Ippolito has been cast to portray a young Sylvester Stallone in I Play Rocky, a feature film about the making of the 1976 boxing classic. The project will be directed by Peter Farrelly and produced by Toby Emmerich and Christian Baha for Amazon MGM Studios, with a planned theatrical release. The screenplay is by Peter Gamble.

I Play Rocky dramatizes Stallone's struggle to get his screenplay produced while insisting on playing the lead role of Rocky Balboa despite professional resistance and the offer of substantial money to sell the script without him in the part. The official synopsis describes a struggling actor with a partially paralyzed face and a speech impediment who turns down life changing money, works for pennies and ultimately helps create one of the most successful films of the 1970s. The Rocky franchise has become a major cultural and commercial phenomenon, with the series and its Creed spinoffs grossing more than 1.7 billion worldwide.

Producers cast Ippolito after an unconventional pursuit of the role that echoes the film's underdog narrative. He reportedly submitted an unsolicited audition tape directly to the producers, a bold move that ultimately led to...