Despite how the crowds may feel about it, Sylvester Stallone is no unilateral supporter of the highest-grossing franchise of his lifetime.

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Rocky Balboa has stood witness to some of the greatest moves in the ring and an overall redemption and rise to greatness story told in the cinematic frame.

However, despite the awards won and the recognition received, Stallone is hardly impressed with one of the numerous sequels spawned in the aftermath of the 1976 classic, Rocky.

Sylvester Stallone at the 49th Academy Awards
Sylvester Stallone Revealed His Greatest Disappointment

The public, ever since the premiere of the first film of the Rocky franchise, has been a devout and devoted supporter of the titular underdog who has risen from unbelievable circumstances and gone through humanely impossible struggles to ultimately become a champion for the people.

The almost mythical status that this uncharacteristic and unassuming hero then achieves makes people want to keep returning to the franchise over and over again, simply to relive the experience that makes Rocky stand out from every other sports drama to have ever been made.

Rocky (1976)
However, as the Academy Award-winning story progresses through the years, it becomes apparent how Hollywood and in some part, Sylvester Stallone himself have been involved in milking the franchise for all its worth as long as the crowd keeps cheering Rocky Balboa’s name in and out of the theatres.

The only snag in the plan was the stumble that the billion-dollar franchise received in its fifth lap around the Hollywood race track of big-budget and critically successful productions.

It has been recorded, not simply by the general consensus, but by Sly himself, that Rocky 5 was a mistake.

Sylvester Stalloneʼs Comments On the Failure of Rocky 5

If a creator being disappointed in a piece of his own creation is the worst fate one can think of, one might need to get acquainted with Sylvester Stallone.

The filmmaker has not only expressed seething rage and disappointment at the failure of Rocky 5 but has completely disowned the film in its totality. Speaking of the fifth installment, Stallone claimed:
“It didn’t even belong in the series. The fans, that’s what I felt bad about. Everyone says, ‘I hate the fifth one!’”

Sylvester Stallone with Michael B. Jordan in Creed (2015)
Instead, he much prefers the sixth and final film of the mainstream Rocky franchise and revealed the narrative that seemed so royal to him about 2006’s Rocky Balboa was how “the character jogs off into the sunset with a little bit of nobility.” 

In the decade that followed, Rocky’s golden fate would be reversed after Sylvester Stallone made a high-profile return and a reprisal of his Oscar-winning role in Michael B. Jordan‘s Creed franchise.

The third film, which premiered in 2023, did not find him returning to aid Adonis Creed in his fight against Jonathan Majors‘ Damian Anderson, as Sly remains knee-deep in the trenches of the high-profile legal battle concerning the rights of the character Stallone created 47 years ago.