20 Things You Somehow Missed In Rocky

14. A Supposed Mistake From The Props Department

Rocky Thumb
MGM

Another famous, now infamous scene from the original movie is when Rocky meets with a fight promoter on the eve of his bout. He complains that a banner displaying his likeness, and hanging in the arena, is a misprint. Balboa tells the promoter that the image shows him wearing red shorts with white stripes. He, however, will be wearing white shorts with red stripes.

For years, pencil-nosed film nerds have regaled countless bored party-goers with the tidbit that this scene was filmed to cover a mistake by the props department. The tale goes that the banner was printed wrong. A scene had to be written on the fly to cover for the error.

But! I'll step into the role of pencil-nose to explain how wrong you film nerds are! In 2018, Sylvester Stallone announced that the banner was correct, and he had changed his mind about the trunks. He even posted a picture of himself wearing the red trunks during filming. The scene with the promoter was filmed because of Stallone's sudden change of mind.

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John is a teacher and writer living in Texas. He spends far too much time watching Star Trek. Check out more if his work at artofnarrative.com