Cinema Speculation

by Quentin Tarantino

Carl Weathers spends the entire movie fucking furious at his perception in the media. Creed stomping around his giant house—angrily reading hate mail—probably mirrors Stallone stomping around his giant house reading Pauline Kael’s review of Paradise Alley. In the press, Stallone went from “aww shucks” nice guy to challenging movie reviewers to fights (“I’d like to see him say that to my face!”). He had the money, he had the fame, he had the house, he had the wardrobe, he had the cars. But putting pen to paper on the manuscript for Rocky II, he knew something he never could have known when he wrote the first movie. To possess those things there’s a price to be paid. And yeah, people can say, fuck you—no biggie. I’m sure that’s what Stallone would have said before Rocky. But those are people who have never and will never pay that price. And Stallone didn’t handle it well.