Sylvester Stallone Calls Out Dolph Lundgren & Irwin Winkler Over Rocky Spinoff, Drago

Sylvester Stallone is in a baaad mood. He feels betrayed by his very good friend, and co-star of his Rocky franchise movie, Dolph Lundgren and the producer of the movie franchise Irwin Winkler. For clarification on what the fuss is about, let me break it down for you from the beginning.

We all remember the award-winning film Rocky, right? Rocky is the breakout movie of Sylvester Stallone. The movie was originally created by Sylvester Stallone who also starred as the main character of the film and, it was produced by the American film producer Irwin Winkler. The antagonist in Rocky, from the first Rocky to Rocky III was Apollo Creed (played by Carl Weathers). In Rocky IV, a new character was introduced Ivan Drago (played by Dolph Lundgren).

Sequels to Rocky ended at Rocky Balboa in 2006, and a spinoff for the movie came out in 2015, titled Creed. This one is centered on Apollo Creed’s son Adonis “Donnie” Creed (played by Michael B. Jordan). The sequel Creed II which came out in 2018 also featured Ivan Drago who came to train his son Viktor Drago (played by Florian Munteanu) to fight Donnie. Creed III will be out March 3, 2023.

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Sylvester Stallone — Why So Furious?

Okay, now that I’ve broken down the origin of the movie, let’s talk about what’s biting Sylvester about all this.

Sometime last year, Dolph Lundgren, during his promotion of Creed’s sequel Creed III, teased to Hollywood Reporters that a spinoff from his character in the Rock franchise might be created and titled Drago. “By the way, I think there’s some talk about doing a whole spinoff on Drago with MGM. So you may get more of that.” Last week, an announcement was made by The Wrap that Dolph and Florian will be playing the role of Ivan and Viktor Drago in the upcoming spinoff of Creed titled Drago.

Now here’s where Sylvester’s anger is coming from. For long now, Sylvester has been fighting for rights to the characters and story he created in his movie franchise Rocky. Since he’s the creator/writer of the movie, by rights he is entitled to have ownership rights to the characters and stories. Sylvester told Variety in 2019 that he has “zero ownership” of the franchise and expressed his anger and fury for not having left any equity stake to his children. He also regretted not fighting harder for his rights at the initial stage when negotiating the deal for the original movie.

Sylvester Stallone’s – Reaction To Drago News

When The Wrap made the announcement last week, Sylvester didn’t take the news well, he took to his Instagram account to vent his anger by calling the film producer Irwin a bloodsucker. He wrote: “ONCE AGAIN, IRWIN WINKLER, this PATHETIC 94 year old PRODUCER and HIS MORONIC VULTURE CHILDREN, Charles And David, are once again picking clean THE BONES of another wonderful character I created without even telling me…”

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He shared the screenshot of the announcement of the spinoff and expressed his bitterness over how his long time friend Dolph didn’t find it worthy to tell Sylvester about the Drago spinoff, despite knowing he has been fighting to gain rights over the movie. “By the way, I once had nothing but respect for Dolph but he NEVER told me about what was going on behind my back with the character I created for him!!! REAL FRIENDS Are more precious than gold.”

Sylvester screamed that his rights to the characters be returned to him, even just a little bit. “After IRWIN WINKLER And FAMILY SUCK ROCKY DRY!” he wrote. “Presumed to be the most hated, untalented, decrepited [sic], Producer in Hollywood and his cowardly children have found their next meal… Drago, RETURN MY RIGHTS BLOODSUCKERS!”

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