Rocky III (1982) is the third installment in the Rocky movie series. It stars
Sylvester Stallone as the title
character, with Carl Weathers as former boxing rival Apollo Creed, and Talia Shire as Rocky's wife, Adrian.
Rocky's opponent is Clubber Lang, played by former bodyguard Mr.
T. Lang is a younger and more aggressive boxer than Rocky. He is brash, outspoken, and charismatic. The part made Mr. T an
icon, leading to him being one of the first elements outlined for The A-Team
television series.
The film also features professional wrestler Terry "Hulk Hogan" Bollea as the supporting
character "Thunderlips". The role brought Hogan to a widespread audience.
Plot
Rocky III begins with an opening montage of scenes that explains what happened in the time between Rocky II and
Rocky III. In the four years following his victory over Apollo Creed, Rocky Balboa
has become the new heavyweight champion of the world, and begins a string of 10 successful title defenses. As his winning streak
grows, so does his fame, wealth and celebrity, and soon Rocky is seen everywhere, from magazine covers to TV show guest star
appearances. Rocky is also heavily merchandised, including T-shirts and his own "Crunch Punch" chocolate bars, and appears as a
spokesman for Tony Llama boots and American Express,
to name a few. At the same time, James "Clubber" Lang (Mr. T) (A fighter based on George Foreman and Larry Holmes) is climbing the ranks, rapidly
becoming the number one contender for Rocky's title.
The year is 1981 and Rocky’s brother-in-law Paulie (Burt
Young) has grown jealous of Rocky’s accomplishments. After a night of heavy drinking, Paulie destroys a ROCKY
pinball machine in a rage and is arrested. Rocky goes to bail him out of jail and, on the way to Rocky's car to ride home, Paulie begins berating Rocky for apparently forgetting him on his
climb to the top. Rocky calls Paulie a "jealous, lazy bum" and Paulie starts lunging at him. After several failed attempts to
land any punch on Rocky, Paulie swallows his pride and asks Rocky for a job working his corner and helping him train. Rocky,
frustrated but still loyal to his brother-in-law, replies, "All you had to do was ask!"
Rocky agrees to a charity boxer vs. wrestler
match with Wrestling champion, Thunderlips (Hulk Hogan). Rocky treats the whole affair as
light-hearted fun, flicking gentle punches at Thunderlips, who attacks Rocky with a variety of wrestling moves, most notably Hulk
Hogan's own signature move, the Atomic Leg Drop. After being thrown out of the ring, Rocky decides to remove his gloves
and fights back, even managing to throw Thunderlips out of the ring himself. Just as the match degenerates into a
shoot fight, the bell rings and the match is declared a draw. Thunderlips calms down, even
agreeing to have his picture taken with Rocky's family. When Rocky asks Thunderlips why he got so crazy, he merely replies
"That's the name of the game."
Rocky has a statue unveiled in Philadelphia and reveals his plans to
retire from boxing. Clubber Lang, who is in attendance at the ceremony, challenges Rocky yet again, this time criticizing Rocky’s
title defenses as being fixed. Rocky agrees to the fight, but Mickey, his trainer, wants no part of it. He admits to Rocky that
the fighters he defended his title against were hand-picked (or in Mickey's own words, "they were good fighters but they weren't
killers"), but only because Rocky received such a bad beating (that should have killed him) in his win over Creed, that
Mickey took it upon himself to make sure Rocky remained successful and healthy. He also tells Rocky that Lang is a young and
hungry "wrecking machine" and that Rocky has no chance beating him. Rocky manages to convince Mickey to train him, but his Las
Vegas-style training camp is filled with distractions.
Lang and Rocky meet at Philadelphia's Spectrum on August 15th 1981. During a melee before the fight, Mickey is shoved out of the
way by Lang, and suffers a heart attack. Rocky wishes to call the fight off, but Mickey urges him on while he stays in the
dressing room. By the time of the fight, Rocky is both enraged and severely distracted by his mentor's condition, and, despite
attacking Lang fiercely in the beginning of the first round, Rocky is easily and brutally beaten up and knocked out by Lang in
the second, losing the title. Rocky returns to the locker room to have one final conversation with Mickey before his old mentor
passes away.
In a funk of depression, Rocky is confronted by Apollo Creed, who offers to help train him. Previously, Creed's offer to shake
hands with both fighters was sharply rebuffed by Lang, who called Creed a "has-been". After some cajoling, Creed convinces Rocky
to challenge Lang again, only this time Creed will help him train. Apollo takes him to the slums of Los Angeles so that Rocky can get back to the basics. At first, Rocky is too demoralized to put
forth his best efforts. However, after admitting to Adrian that he's afraid and after Adrian tells Rocky to do the fight for
himself, and no one else, he pulls himself together to train as hard as he can, adding Apollo's speed and skill to his own style
of fighting.
The rematch is held at Madison Square Garden in New York City. With the odds of
Rocky recovering his title strongly against him, Rocky is ready for anything. Meanwhile, in a pre-fight interview, Lang says,
"No, I don't hate Balboa, but I pity the fool." When asked for a prediction for their rematch, he replied, "Pain ..."
At the start of the fight, Rocky sprints from his corner and goes right after Lang from the off, fighting with a level of
skill and spirit that no one, including Lang, expected. As a result Rocky completely dominates the first round, scoring punch
after punch and demonstrating his newfound speed, modeled somewhat after Apollo's fighting style. In the second round, Lang gains
the upper hand, and Rocky adopts an entirely different strategy that bewilders Apollo; he intentionally takes a beating from
Lang, whilst taunting him for being unable to knock him out.
In Round 3, Lang, who is used to winning fights quickly with knockouts in the early rounds of a fight, quickly expends his
energy trying to finish Rocky off, to no avail. Rocky retalliates and knocks out a confused and befuddled Lang with a devastating
counter-attack of his own, regaining his world heavyweight championship and recovering his self-respect.
Soon afterwards, Rocky and Apollo return to Mickey's gym, with Apollo revealing his favor: a third fight with Rocky. However,
this time it would only be a sparring match between friends. The film ends with Rocky and Apollo circling the ring, freezing the
frame just before they make contact.
Bronze statue
A bronze statue of Rocky, called "ROCKY", was commissioned by Sylvester Stallone and created by A.
Thomas Schomberg in 1981. Three statues were created and one was placed on the top of the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the filming
of Rocky III. After filming was complete, a furious debate erupted in Philadelphia between the Art Museum and the City's
Art Commission over the meaning of "art." Claiming the statue was not "art" but rather a "movie
prop" the city considered various alternate locations and settled upon the front of
the Wachovia Spectrum in South Philadelphia. It was later returned to the Art Museum
where it was used in the filming of Rocky V, as well as Mannequin and Philadelphia. Afterward, it was
again moved to the front of the Spectrum. The statue was returned to the museum's steps on September 8, 2006.
The third of the three statues was listed on eBay in early 2005, with a starting bid of
US$5,000,000. It was being auctioned to raise funds for the International Institute for Sport and
Olympic History. It failed to sell and was listed again for US$3 million; after receiving only one bid, which turned out
to be fraudulent, it has been relisted several times for US$1 million. [1]
The statues weigh 800 pounds each and stand about 8'6" tall.
Trivia
- The scene for Rocky III, where Balboa announces his retirement, and is challenged by Clubber
Lang, was filmed for 10 hours. [citation needed]
- The day the "Rocky Balboa" retirement speech was filmed, May 13, 1981, is the day Pope John Paul II was shot while riding through
St. Peter's Square in Rome.
- You will notice that Butkus, Stallone's 110 pound bull-mastiff is no longer in the Rocky series. Butkus died before Rocky III
began filming. Stallone was devastated. In fact, he was so upset he wouldn't write in another dog so he wrote Butkus out of the
series; of course this vow would be broken as Stallone brought in a new dog twenty-four years later in Rocky Balboa.
- The movie's soundtrack contained Survivor's "Eye
Of The Tiger." The song went on to become an international chart-topper later in 1982. Stallone had originally intended
for the film to feature Queen's "Another One
Bites the Dust", but he was unable to secure the rights.[citation needed]"Eye of the Tiger" was written
specifically for the movie, and is based on a line of the film's dialogue.
- The marching band performing the film's theme (composed by Bill Conti) at the statue
unveiling ceremony, is the Abraham Lincoln High School Marching Band from the Philadelphia high school.
- A Rocky pinball machine appears in the film. It was a regular production pinball machine
that many arcades stocked around that time.[2] however the machine in the film was merely a prop designed specifically for
III and was not actually a complete game. When the real game was released, the backglass and cabinet were drastically different
from the game shown in the movie.
- Rocky III is the only Rocky movie in which Rocky loses a fight by a knockout. His other loses to Creed and
Mason Dixon are by split-decision. It and Rocky V are also the
only Rocky movie in which Rocky does not "go the distance", boxing for the full
fifteen rounds, although the fight with Tommy Gunn was a street fight.
- The film includes footage of Sylvester Stallone's appearance in a 1979 episode of The
Muppet Show.[3] Stallone appeared in the show as himself, and was introduced by the host using his real name. For the purposes of
Rocky III, the footage was redubbed so that Stallone was instead introduced as Rocky.
- Sylvester Stallone's first wife, Sasha, makes a cameo during Rocky's first training sequence as the fan asking Rocky for a
kiss.
- During the montage scene you can glimpse The Official Rocky Scrapbook. This was an
actual book published in 1977 written by Sylvester Stallone.
- This movie was the big-screen debut for Terry "Hulk Hogan" Bollea.
- Sylvester Stallone and Mr. T both went on to make appearances for the World
Wrestling Federation. Mr. T teamed with Hogan against "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff at the inaugural
WrestleMania pay-per-view event in 1985, and several subsequent matches.
Stallone eventually inducted co-star Hulk Hogan into the WWE Hall of Fame as part of
WrestleMania 21 weekend in 2005, as well as promoting Rocky Balboa in 2006, on an episode of Monday Night
RAW.
- The timeline of the films becomes muddled with this installment. The original Rocky (1976) is set in late 1975, and
culminates with a title fight held on January 1, 1976. Its sequel Rocky II (1979) is set later in the same year. When
Mickey dies, his tombstone shows that the film is set in 1981. However, the events of Rocky II are repeatedly described as
being set three years in the past, rather than five years as should be the case. In the original Rocky, the character is
said to have been born in 1945. In Rocky III he should be 36, but he is instead described as being 34 years old. In
Rocky, Rocky's trainer says he is 76 years old, putting his date of birth sometime between 1899 and 1900. However, his
tombstone in Rocky III lists his date of birth as 1905. This timeline skew becomes more evident in Rocky IV and
V, as the characters seem to age 3-4 years between installments despite story elements occurring concurrently.
- This is the only Rocky movie that does not feature a press conference between
the two fighters.
- The ring announcer for the fight between Rocky and Thunderlips is painter LeRoy Neiman.
A painting of his with Rocky and Apollo is featured in the closing credits. This same painting is featured in the restaurant
Rocky owns in Rocky Balboa.
- Real-life boxing ring announcer Jimmy Lennon Sr. provides the introductions for the
first Lang-Balboa fight.
- In the comedy Airplane II: The Sequel, which was released half a year
after Rocky III, there is a Rocky 37 poster.
- The sportscasting duo of Stu Nahan and Bill Baldwin return to provide live coverage of both Rocky/Clubber fights. This was
Bill Baldwin's last appearance in the Rocky series; he died in November 1982.
- Both former Heavyweight contender Earnie Shavers and former champion Joe Frazier were considered for the role of Clubber Lang.
- Mr T's workout routine in the beginning of the film in the basement of a building mirrors the way he actually worked out in
his youth, according to his autobiography. He didn't have the money to use machines, so he improvised using whatever was
available.
- In the film, Clubber, when asked if he hates Rocky, says, "No I don't hate Balboa, but I pity the fool." The last part of
that phrase has since become synonymous with Mr. T.
- In the scene where Rocky has flashbacks on the beach, he has a flashback of something that has not happened yet, (when
Clubber Lang hits him hard on the back while Rocky is wearing his American shorts which Apollo has not yet given him. This of
course does provide direct humor for some devoted fans to believe that Rocky could see a slight foreshadowing.)
- The closing scene of the movie has been parodied by Family Guy in the episode
The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire, where the frame freezes just as the two
are about to deliver blows to each other.
Reception
U.S. Box Office
- Rocky III (1982): US$125 million
U.K. & U.S charts for the soundtrack
UK Date: 04/09/1982 - Run: 52-*42*-47-43-50-55-77 (7 wks)
US Date: 10/07/1982 - Run: 72-42-34-30-21-19-*15*-15-15-15-15-33-59-79-100-115-138-158-199 (19 wks)
External links
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