'' (
1982 ) is the third installment in the
Rocky Movie series, starring
Sylvester Stallone ,
Carl Weathers , and
Talia Shire .
''Rocky III'' features
Mr. T , who plays the character
Clubber Lang , a contender who has some characteristics of a classic
Boxing villain whose human side is usually hidden by his loudness.
It also features Terry "
Hulk Hogan " Bollea as the character Thunderlips, a role which helped popularize Hogan.
- A Fighter. A Lover. A Legend. The Greatest Challenge.
- The Excitement... The Power... The Man...
- The greatest challenge.
''Rocky III'' begins where ''Rocky II'' left off, with Rocky winning the title from Apollo Creed (played by Weathers). Creed retires, and Rocky becomes an accomplished champion, making ten defenses of his belt over three years. Meanwhile, he buys a mansion, appears on several magazine covers and makes several
TV show appearances (''
The Muppet Show ''), and becomes a household name as he appears on everything from T-shirts to chocolate bars. While this is all happening, Clubber Lang is coming up in the ranks, beating everybody put in front of him. He becomes the number one challenger, while Rocky gets reconstructive nose surgery and starts to learn how to speak in public.
While Rocky lives comfortably as the heavyweight champion of the world, his brother in law Paulie (played by
Burt Young ) still lives in the slums of Philadelphia, and is jealous of his wealthy and successful brother in law. Paulie walks into a video arcade off the streets of Philadelphia, and he spots a Rocky pinball machine. Enraged, Paulie hurls a bottle at the machine, smashing it. He is later arrested and Rocky bails Paulie out of jail. After Paulie is out he swings at Rocky a few times and shows his jealousy toward Rocky's achievements. He is also mad at him because Rocky never asked for him to live with him or support him with some kind of job. Finally, Paulie asks for a ringside job and Rocky agrees, taking Paulie home to his mansion.
Rocky attends a charity boxing-
Wrestling match with Thunderlips (Terry "
Hulk Hogan " Bollea), with Lang watching at ringside. Early in the match, Thunderlips grabs Rocky and attacks him with a variety of wrestling moves such as the backbreaker and suplex. After being thrown out of the ring, Rocky decides to remove his gloves and fight back finally hurting the wrestler. In a stunning display of strength, Rocky carries Thunderlips and dropped him out of the ring. Ultimately, Rocky and Thunderlips are forced to draw the match.
Rocky has a statue unveiled in
Philadelphia , but Lang shows up there too, and taunts Rocky that his fights had been fixed after the Creed rematch. Rocky, confused, asks Mickey, his trainer, to explain, and Mickey admits that his fights after winning the championship were against opponents that were hand-picked to make sure they were not of championship caliber, in order to protect him from another dangerous fight like his two fights with Creed. To that end, he strongly advises Rocky against fighting Lang since the challenger is not only brutal, but also has a superior fighting spirit while Rocky has become too comfortable as champion.
Rocky, feeling he needs to prove to himself that he is worthy of his title of Heavyweight Champion of the World, signs to fight Lang, the number one contender. Unfortunately, Rocky fails to take his training seriously as he made his pre-fight training public by renting a hotel's multi-purpose, allowing people to interrupt him for pictures or kissing, selling memorabilia, hiring musicians and specialists to decorate his training into a public party, etc. While Rocky relaxed and enjoyed a stylized training, Lang pushes himself very hard as trains himself with total dedication in isolation. Mickey fears disaster as a result.
Lang and Rocky meet at Philadelphia's
Spectrum . During a melee before the fight, Mickey is accidentally pushed, hits a tube, and suffers a heart attack. Rocky and Lang fight, but Rocky's mind is on Mickey, and he loses the fight and the championship belt, by a
Knockout in the second round. When he returns to his locker room, he and Mickey have their last conversation, and Mickey passes away in Rocky's arms.
Rocky is deep in self-doubt, but Apollo comes in to help, and takes him and Adrian to
Los Angeles , where Apollo talks to him about "recovering the eye of the tiger," his critical fighting spirit. Apollo starts teaching Rocky how to box with rhythm. Rocky attempts to learn from Apollo, but his regrets and fears sap his resolve and Apollo is frustrated. A heart to heart with Adrian occurs, in which Rocky admits his fears and she reassures him that she will be with him no matter what. Thus inspired, Rocky returns to the training with renewed vigor.
In a rematch versus Lang, and with the world watching, Rocky fights with a level of skill and fighting spirit that no one, including Clubber Lang, expects. Defying Creed, Rocky intentionally takes a beating, gambling that Clubber Lang will tire before Rocky is knocked down. Defeating Lang with a knockout in three while he manages to stay standing this time, he recovers his world heavyweight championship and his self-respect at the
Madison Square Garden in
New York . Rocky and Apollo then are shown entering Mick's gym, where Apollo wants Rocky to do him a favor: Apollo wants a third fight with Rocky, even though this one will only be a practice bout. The movie finishes with Apollo and Rocky swinging crosses at each other.
The movie contained a song by
Survivor , ''
Eye Of The Tiger '', which became a chart topper the year the movie was released, in
1982 .
A bronze statue of Rocky, called "ROCKY", was commissioned by Sylvester Stallone and created by
A. Thomas Schomberg in 1983. Three statues were created and one was placed on the top of the stairs of the
Philadelphia Museum Of Art for the filming of Rocky III. After filming was complete, a furious debate erupted in Philadelphia between the Art Museum and the City's Art Commission over the meaning of "
Art ." Claiming the statue was not "art" but rather a "movie
Prop " the city considered various alternate locations and settled upon the front of the
Wachovia Spectrum in South Philadelphia. It was later returned to the Art Museum where it was used in the filming of
Rocky V , as well as ''
Mannequin '' and ''
Philadelphia ''. Afterward it was again moved to the front of the Spectrum.
The third of the three statues was listed on
EBay with a starting bid of US$5,000,000 to raise funds for the
International Institute For Sport And Olympic History . It failed to sell and was listed again for US$3 million; after receiving only one bid, which turned out to be fraudulent, it has been relisted several times for US$1 million.
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The statues weighed 2 tons each and stood about ten feet tall.
- Sylvester Stallone originally wanted to use the song "Another One Bites the Dust" from Queen as the main song in the movie. However he wasn't able to secure the rights so instead he had the band Survivor create the song "Eye of the Tiger" specifically for the movie.
- The Rocky pinball machine shown in the arcade Paulie stops by during his drunken rage was a real pinball machine that many arcades had around the time that the film came out.
- This movie has two firsts for the Rocky series. It is the first Rocky movie where Rocky loses a fight by knockout, and it's also the first Rocky movie where Rocky doesn't go all the way to the 15th round to defeat his opponent.
- During the montage scene where it shows Rocky's rise to fame and riches, the scene where he is on The Muppet Show is from the episode in which Sylvester Stallone hosted in real life.
- This movie was the on-screen debut for Terry "Hulk Hogan" Bollea. The then relatively unknown professional wrestler would use the exposure from this film to help launch perhaps the most famous professional wrestling career in history.
- Many people say that the character Clubber Lang was inspired by Mike Tyson , who around this time was an up and coming fighter. However, Tyson was only 16 when this film came out and wasn't even fighting professional yet, so that statement is false, though Lang has many similiarities to Tyson.
- '' Rocky '': US$117.3 million
- '' Rocky II '': US$85 million
- '' Rocky IV '': US$125.4 million
- '' Rocky V '': US$40 million
These figures only reflect movie theater ticket sales in the United States. The most profitable of the films by far was the original ''Rocky'', which only spent a production budget of US$1.1 million.
