Over the Summer, we got the fantastic and unexpected news that Sylvester Stallone was working on a massive edit for a long-awaited director’s cut for Rocky IV. Now thanks to Sly being the master of self-promotion that he is and his official Instagram account, we now have a clear(ish) picture of what to expect in this highly anticipated fresh version of the fan favorite of the franchise.
And quite honestly some of you might get a little pissed about this.
One of the biggest bombs dropped about what to expect from this, was the elimination of Paulie’s wacky birthday gift, the robot SICO in this cut. No “Happy Birthday Paulie“. No Rocky Jr. making himself dizzy on the thing while telling his dad his head looks like a “punching mitt”.
Nope. None of that at all. While Sly hasn’t offered an explanation, the creator of the Sico Robot, Robert Doornick, shared his own recent theory with “Empire” about why Stallone has decided to cut the fan-favorite from the new edition:
“I was in my office when I found out. I was deluged with messages: ‘How can Stallone do that?’ But I know why he’s doing it, because I know he loves the robot. By causing turmoil among the fans of Sico, it generates more publicity. And by removing the robot from the movie, it saves money in royalty fees, because he is a member of the Screen Actors Guild. Sico receives cheques all the time – and of course he sends them over to me.”
Welp. I’m just a peon and no have authority to challenge the Italian Stallion on his own films. So, let’s see how this plays out. I would also assume it was also done to make room for additional footage; such as MORE DRAGO DIAOLGUE.
Oh, yeah. He’s actually going to have more than two sentences this time around. It also looks like via the IG video below that the Apollo/Drago fight might be edited as well. Whether it’s before, after, during, or hell all of the above, remains to be known.
In addition via a fan Q &A on the post, two new songs that were unused for the original film will be added to the feature; and to be perfectly honest, one can’t have too many montages in one of the greatest montage films in cinema history. So you’ll hear no complaints from me.
One final note, while this is speculation at this point and there is no confirmation, the director’s cut MAY actually get a theatrical limited release perhaps before the master cut is available to buy/stream. This is all according to Sly himself answering fan questions and quoted as saying, “I believe it’s going to be released as a feature film first.”
So hey, I guess will find out more soon!
A post shared by Sly Stallone (@officialslystallone) on Sep 29, 2020 at 9:18am PDT
Nightmare Nostalgia 