Sylvester Stallone has launched a verbal attack on veteran producer Irwin Winkler in connection with the Rocky films, describing Winkler as “talented and parasitic” for not giving him any part of the rights to the series of boxing films that Stallone created the original characters and wrote and directed multiple entries.
Stallone posted an offensive cartoon of Winkler on social media, writing: “I would really like to have at least a little of what’s REMAINING of my RIGHTS back – I believe that would be an HONEST gesture from this 93 year old gentleman.”
Noting that Winkler’s rights will likely pass to his children, who include Rocky producers Balboa Charles and David Winkler, Stallone added, “It’s a painful subject that eats away at my soul because I wanted to leave something of Rocky for my children.”
Stallone also published the cover of a novel by David Winkler (producer of all three Creed films as well as Rocky Balboa), calling him “the painfully untalented … son of the extremely untalented and parasitic [Irwin Winkler]”, and that “this crew is the worst non-human [sic] creatures I have ever met in the film industry”. He also suggested that “if it hadn’t been for Winkler, there would have been at least three more Rockys.”
The Rocky franchise currently consists of six films. The first five, all written by Stallone and three of which he directed, were released between 1976 and 1990; Stallone also wrote and directed Rocky Balboa, which came out in 2006. Stallone was a producer on the individual Creed films: he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for 2015’s Creed and is the credited screenwriter of Creed II. which came out in 2018. The third Creed movie is due to arrive in November 2022.
In an interview with Variety in 2019, Stallone complained about not having an equity stake in the franchise, saying, “It was shocking that it never happened, but I was told, ‘Hey, they paid you, so what are you doing complaining?’ I was furious.
Representatives for Winkler have been contacted for comment.
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