12 Perfect Casting Choices That Launched Major Film Franchises
4. Sylvester Stallone Rocky/Rambo
After seeing the Muhammad Ali/Chuck Wepner fight, in which a nobody went up against the undisputed boxing champion of the world, struggling actor Sylvester Stallone went home and spent the better part of the next four days writing the screenplay for Rocky. He refused to sell the script unless he was given the title role. The result was three Oscars, including Best Picture. Stallone was nominated for Best Actor, but lost out to Peter Finch for Network. Three years later, he reprised the role in Rocky II, while also writing and directing it. Four more sequels would follow over the next 24 years. While none of them gained the accolades of the first, they still brought in the fans, which had grown very fond of the hardscrabble character that got a once-in-a-lifetime chance and ran with it. Thats a plot twist that is very attractive for American audiences, and Stallone knew it. Few actors get a chance to create their own franchise; even fewer get a chance to create a second one. First Blood was an unremarkable revenge novel by David Morrell, but Stallone used his star power and Rocky success to rewrite the script, making the central character, former Special Forces veteran John Rambo, a much more sympathetic figure. Like Rocky before it, became a critical and commercial hit. Three more sequels followed, with a 20-year hiatus between Rambo III and Rambo (IV).
