Rocky III (1982) on Netflix
Rocky Balboa, heavyweight champion, has ten title defenses behind him and fame all around. A powerful young contender, Clubber Lang, challenges him, and manager Mickey Goldmill fears the fight.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb6.9/10232,660 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes66%
Trailer
Plot summary
Rocky Balboa is world heavyweight champion, with ten successful title defenses and growing fame and wealth. His manager, Mickey Goldmill, watches a young and powerful contender, Clubber Lang, rise through the ranks. At the unveiling of a statue of himself by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Rocky tries to announce his retirement, but Lang, now the number-one contender, interrupts and challenges him publicly, accusing Rocky of choosing lesser opponents. Mickey wants no part of the fight. Pressed by Rocky, Mickey admits he handpicked Rocky's opponents to protect him from another beating like the one Apollo Creed gave him, and says Lang is young, powerful, and hungry while Rocky has lost the stamina for such a fight. Rocky convinces Mickey to train him for one last bout, but insists on training in a crowded hotel ballroom while Lang trains alone.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Rocky III (1982)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The hit song "Eye of the Tiger" only exists because Queen refused to let Stallone use "Another One Bites the Dust", prompting him to turn to Survivor, who wrote the track's riff to match the film's punches.
- A then-unknown Morgan Freeman auditioned for the small role of Clubber Lang's manager but did not get the part, which went to Wally Taylor instead.
- Boxers Joe Frazier and Earnie Shavers were both considered to play villain Clubber Lang but were passed over for vocal reasons, Frazier reportedly having a stutter and Shavers a high-pitched voice unsuited to the character's menace.
- To portray a leaner, more defined Rocky Balboa, Stallone adopted an extreme physical regimen, claiming he cut his body fat to 2.6 percent and his weight to about 155 pounds while living mainly on ten egg whites and a piece of toast a day.
- The bronze Rocky statue made for the film set off a debate between the Art Museum and the City's Art Commission over whether the installed statue counted as art or as a movie prop, after which the city moved it to the Spectrum in South Philadelphia.
