Sylvester Stallone speaks on his battle for the rights to the Rocky franchise and the future of Rambo

Last Updated on November 9, 2022

Action icon Sylvester Stallone is making his television debut with the Paramount+ series Tulsa King. In this new series, Stallone will play a mobster who gets assigned to a small town in Tulsa. This will be a change of pace for the actor to star in an episodic streaming show. He will make one last appearance as Barney Ross in the upcoming Expendables 4, but will action franchises be left behind him for good as he proceeds with this new mob series?

Stallone sits down with The Hollywood Reporter and discusses some of his latest hardships with trying to get his rights to the Rocky franchise, which he created, as well as where Rambo will go after the release of Rambo: Last Blood. Earlier this year, Stallone posted on his official Instagram, calling out the producer, Irwin Winkler, and his son David, who own the rights to Rocky, as he wanted his share of the rights to his own creation. When asked how it’s proceeding, Stallone explains,

No. It’s never gonna happen. It was a deal that was done unbeknownst to me by people that I thought were close to me, and they basically gave away whatever rights I would have had. At the time, I was so excited to be working and I didn’t understand this is a business. Who knew Rocky would go on for another 45 years? I’ve never used one [line of dialogue] from anyone else – and the irony is that I don’t own any of it. The people who have done literally nothing control it.”

When it was announced that there would be a Drago spin-off in development, Stallone got even more infuriated. “This is a classic case of them going around and trying to continually cherry-pick aspects of Rocky without even asking me if I want to join in. I’m not an executive producer on the Creed movies.”

Stallone also addresses a rumored project of a young John Rambo in Vietnam, “I think it’s going to happen. I wanted to do it like a Ken Burns documentary on Vietnam, where you drop young Rambo in there, and he’s this outgoing guy, football captain, and then you see why he becomes Rambo. But what they want to do is a modern-day story where I pass the torch. That’s getting close.”

Tulsa King is set to premiere on Paramount+ on November 13.