’I Play Rocky’ Trailer: Sylvester Stallone’s Fight to Play His Iconic Role Gets Its Very Own Movie

If you know anything about Sylvester Stallone‘s breakout role in “Rocky” (which, yes, he also wrote), you probably know that starring in his own film was hardly an easy ask. Lots of the neat (and, in some cases, quite sad) bits of mythos around a) Stallone’s writing of the film and b) subsequent fight to also star in it appear in the first trailer for Peter Farrelly’s “I Play Rocky,” which gives the making of “Rocky,” well, its very own movie.

There’s the stuff about Sly not wanting to go by his real name (everyone, meet “Mike Stallone”), a bit about how he wrote the screenplay in less than four days, and the central conflict of this whole outing: Stallone’s steadfast belief that he needed to, well, play Rocky. It wasn’t a popular choice at the time! (We’re still waiting to see if the film will also tackle the oft-repeated story that Stallone literally sold his dog for cash at one point, only to get him back after he sold the script.)

The film, written by Peter Gamble, stars relative newbie Anthony Ippolito in the lead role. Funnily enough, the young actor has also played another titan of Italian American cinema in yet another project: He appeared as Al Pacino in the recent limited series “The Offer,” about the making of “The Godfather.” (More fun trivia: “The Godfather” won Best Picture in 1972, “Rocky” won in 1976.)

Per the film’s official synopsis: “The film is an electrifying true story about an unknown actor with an unshakable belief that he wasn’t just meant to write Rocky — he was meant to be Rocky Balboa. Told ‘no’ at every turn, Sylvester Stallone bets everything on himself, holding the line on playing the lead against seemingly impossible odds. The result is the ultimate underdog story behind the ultimate underdog movie.”

The film also stars Matt Dillon, AnnaSophia Robb, P.J. Byrne, Toby Kebbell, Tracy Letts, Jay Duplass, Stephan James, and Kiki Seto. It was produced by Farrelly, Christian Baha, Toby Emmerich, and Paul Currie. One name missing from that lineup? Stallone himself, who is not officially involved in the film (though he previously expressed some interest in getting into the mix).

Amazon MGM Studios will release “I PLay Rocky” in select theaters on Friday, November 6, before going wide later in the month. Check out the film’s first trailer below.