Sylvester Stallone Rips ‘Rocky’ Producer Irwin Winkler For Shutting Him Out Of Franchise Rights

Sylvester Stallone targeted film producer Irwin Winkler in a rage-filled and passionate Instagram post calling him “remarkably untalented,” and blaming Winkler for not allowing him access to franchise rights of the hugely successful character Rocky he originally created.

Stallone had harsh words for the elder Winkler and his son David Winkler, and first left a one-star review of David’s memoir The Arrangement: A Love Story which said in part “I’ve read thousands of books but I have to say THIS one is by far one of the worst! If you ever run out of toilet paper PLEASE by (sic) this one you won’t be disappointed.”

He shared a screenshot of the book review on his Instagram, and also shared a photo of a serpent which he called a “very flattering portrait” of Irwin Winkler. “After Irwin controlling ‘Rocky’ for over 40 years now, and now ‘Creed’, I really would like to have at least a little [of] WHAT’S LEFT of my rights back.” He also said this fight “eats at my soul because I wanted to leave something of ‘Rocky’ to my children.”

The Rambo star is still attached to Creed III as a producer along with Irwin and David, but he will not be appearing in the film. He hinted at a battle over rights to the character brewing behind the scenes, as Stallone has reportedly only seen a small amount of the billions of dollars of profit these films have generated.

Variety first reported that Stallone said he had “zero ownership” of Rocky back in 2019, and he was quoted saying he desired some sort of annuity stake, but “It was shocking that it never came to me, but I was told, ‘Hey, you got paid, so what are you complaining about? I was furious.” It was later reported that he was paid around $10 million for both Creed films, no small fee at all, but continued ownership over several films in the Rocky series certainly would have netted even more for Stallone.

Stallone has since deleted those posts, and it remains to be seen whether he’s prepping any sort of legal action to go along with the tough words he’s typing online. If there’s anyone I don’t wanna be going against in a dispute, legal or otherwise, Sylvester Stallone is certainly one of them.