Sylvester Stallone Completes Rocky 4 Director’s Cut
Rocky star Sylvester Stallone has finally completed his director’s cut of Rocky IV. The role of the underdog boxer Rocky Balboa launched Stallone’s career in 1976, and the legendary Hollywood action star continued playing Rocky for over 40 years, with his last appearance being in 2018’s Creed 2. Although Stallone recently confirmed he is not returning as the ‘Italian Stallion’ for Creed 3, the actor is never too distant from a Rocky-related project, as he has been working on his director’s cut of Rocky IV, which originally released in 1985.
Rocky IV is arguably one of the most popular installments in the franchise’s history, and it features plenty of iconic training montages and the political backdrop of the Cold War. Also, it has the memorable storyline of Rocky battling Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) to get revenge for Drago killing Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), which also served as a source of inspiration for Creed 2’s narrative. Stallone has shared various insights and updates on his Rocky IV director’s cut over the past few months, including extra footage of Apollo and Drago’s showdown and the much-talked-about exclusion of Paulie’s infamous robot. Now, the Rocky star has shared that they have completed work on the Rocky IV director’s cut.
In a new Instagram post, Stallone shared a video of himself in a dark room, which appears to be the same room he was sat in during his last update, with the caption: “Last day of completing ROCKY 4 !!! Get ready to RUMBLE!!!” In the video, the actor removes his mask to talk to the camera, and he shows the screen, which has a shot of the opening of Rocky IV that shows Rocky in his fight with Clubber Lang. Stallone says they were working on “punches and sound,” and the action star then goes onto to explain how a film is “never complete,” and it’s not about “making” a film but about “remaking” it. He then discusses how directors usually “don’t get a chance” to continue remaking their films, but with Rocky IV, they “finally got a chance,” and he finished by expressing his enthusiasm for this cut by saying, “I’m feeling great about this.” Full post can be seen below:
The announcement is exciting, especially for die-hard fans, as it’s likely the wait to finally watch this new version of Rocky IV will be coming to an end soon. The video doesn’t offer too much in the way of what else might be included that hasn’t previously been seen in the theatrical version of Rocky IV, but it’s more an explanation from Stallone of why he felt the need to create this director’s cut, and once again assuring fans it will be great. It will be interesting to see how much impact the changes will have on the film, and if indeed this cut of the film is “deeper and better” like the Rocky star previously stated it was.
Interestingly, this announcement of now completing an updated version of a past Rocky project comes after the actor recently announced he is working on a Rocky prequel TV series. A series that Stallone says will “get to the heart of the Characters” during their younger years. It remains to be seen if that series will come to fruition, but fans of the Rocky franchise now know they’ll get some new content featuring their boxing hero soon, as the Rocky IV director’s cut is now complete.
Source: Sylvester Stallone