Trivia / Rocky IV

• Actor-Inspired Element: Dolph Lundgren came up with the ideas of making his character, Ivan Drago, very stoic, not move too much and just "be there with an intimidating presence". Sylvester Stallone incorporated these ideas by not giving the character too much dialogue and making big close ups, especially in the eyes.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!:
  • According to the main page, the line is "I fight to win, for me!" not "I fight for me!"
  • "I must break you." is occasionally misquoted as "I will break you," oddly enough changing the entire context of the line from Drago Just Following Orders to sounding more like an Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy.
• Breakaway Pop Hit: "Living in America" was released as a single from the movie's soundtrack, and would become James Brown's first Top 40 single in ten years, as well as the last of his career.
• B-Team Sequel: Bill Conti was unable to score this film, as he was busy with The Karate Kid and The Karate Kid Part II. According to Sly himself, Stallone fired Bill Conti because they were fighting about how much of the music was soundtrack and how much of it was score. This was a problem they apparently began to have on Rocky III. Conti must have gotten over it pretty quickly because The Karate Kid Part II (1986) has a soundtrack just like Rocky IV (1985).
• California Doubling: The training scenes set in Russia were actually filmed in Wyoming; the farm is located in Jackson Hole, and most of the exterior shots were filmed in the Grand Teton National Park. The fight itself was shot at the Agrodome at Hastings Park in Vancouver, British Columbia.
• The Cast Showoff: Tony Burton, who has a brief scene in this film playing chess against a Russian opponent, is an accomplished chess player in real life, having once defeated master chessman Stanley Kubrick on the set of The Shining.
• Creator Backlash:
  • A minor example; Stallone (who directed) was happy with how the film came out, but has mentioned he's regretted not having Bill Conti compose the score.
  • In September 2020, Stallone announced a Director's Cut was underway, and the first information he released was that Paulie's infamous robot would not be in that version.
  • Stallone has said killing off Apollo was a foolish and shortsighted move, and that not having Apollo instead be left disabled and wheelchair-bound was a missed opportunity for exploring the depths of his character.
• Creator Couple: Sylvester Stallone's then-wife Brigitte Nielsen plays Ludmilla Drago. It's Hilarious in Hindsight that Stallone and Nielsen had a particularly nasty divorce, so much so that Andrew "Dice" Clay said of the film in his standup that Lungren said, "I must break you," and Nielsen said, "I will break you!"
• Directed by Cast Member: Directed by Sylvester Stallone, who plays the main character Rocky.
• Enforced Method Acting:
  • Both Stallone and Lundgren revealed that during shoots it was Stallone's idea to actually hit each other for realism. Stallone even provoked Lundgren into hitting him with full strength by hitting him earlier than he said. Though that did not entirely work out as Stallone was dropped with one punch to the chest by the professional boxer and eventually had to be hospitalized due to internal swelling.
  • Judging from the confounded reaction on Carl Weathers's face, many have speculated that he wasn't told about Paulie's robot before shooting.
• Fake Russian: None of the actors who played Russian characters are Russian. Dolph Lundgren is Swedish, Brigitte Nielsen is Danish, and the others are American.
• Fatal Method Acting: Well, Near-fatal Method Acting. Sylvester Stallone decided that for the shooting of the fight, he and Dolph Lundgren should hit one another for real for 15 seconds, so as to increase the intensity of the scene. He ended up with a swelling pericardia sac around his heart and had to be rushed to the emergency room by plane. He stayed in intensive care for four days.
• Hostility on the Set: According to Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren and Carl Weathers really did not get along. Weathers nearly quit the film when Lundgren tossed him into the corner of the boxing ring. Weathers shouted profanities at Lundgren while leaving the ring and announcing that he was calling his agent and quitting the movie. Only after Stallone forced the two actors to reconcile did the movie continue. This event caused a four-day work stoppage while Weathers was talked back into the part and Lundgren agreed to tone down his aggressiveness.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Rocky Jr. goes from being played by Ina Fried to being played by Rocky Krakoff.
  • In the French dub, this is the only movie where Apollo Creed isn't voiced by Med Hondo. Instead, he's voiced by Sady Rebbot.
• Role Reprise: Sylvia Meals reprises her role as Mary Anne Creed six years after Rocky II.
• Self-Adaptation: Stallone, who wrote and directed this movie, also wrote its novelization.
• Star-Making Role: For Dolph Lundgren, Ivan Drago cemented him as an action star of the same stature as Sylvester Stallone. As Lundgren himself described in an audience Q&A panel in 2017, at the start of the Hollywood premiere, all the reporters and photographers were clamoring for Stallone, Carl Weathers, Talia Shire, etc., and just about ignored Lundgren. Ninety minutes later, those same reporters were clamoring for him.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Peter Cetera wrote his best-selling solo single "Glory of Love" as the end title for this film, but was passed over by United Artists. It became the theme for The Karate Kid Part II.
  • Sylvester Stallone has been quoted as saying the enormous financial success and fan-following of the film once had him envisioning another Rocky movie devoted to Drago and his post-boxing life, with Balboa's storyline running parallel to Drago's. However, he noted the damage both boxers sustained in the fight made them "incapable of reason" and thus instead planned Rocky V as a showcase of the dangers of boxing.
  • Professional wrestlers Nikita Koloff and Kerry Von Erich were both approached for the role of Drago. Von Erich dropped out after failing his audition, forgetting his line, and Koloff was turned down due to Sylvester Stallone and producer Irwin Winkler believing he was too large for Rocky to conceivably beat in a fair contest. Because Stallone otherwise liked delivery and athleticism, he offered him a smaller role as one of Drago's cohorts, but he turned it down due to scheduling conflicts.
  • Originally, the film's composer Vince DiCola planned to incorporate more of Bill Conti's original themes into his score, including a remix of "Gonna Fly Now". However, most of these cues were not present in the final film.
  • According to Sylvester Stallone's original treatment, this film was originally meant to open by revealing what happened in the third fight between Rocky and Apollo:
  Finally they both unleash powerful punches at the same moment and both of them go back against the ropes, fall down, hold their jaws and wonder what the hell they are doing in here fighting one another.
  Apollo: Did that hurt you as much as it hurt me?
  Rocky: Absolutely.
  Apollo: Okay, we'll just say it's a tie, okay?
• Word of God: Originally, according to Sylvester Stallone, Ivan Drago returned home in disgrace and became addicted to alcohol and steroids before committing suicide. A draft of Rocky Balboa featured Rocky visiting Drago in a hospital while he was dying of AIDS. His fate was retconned by Creed II, which shows him still alive in 2018, but indeed fallen from grace — having lost everything, been divorced by his wife and forced to leave the USSR in disgrace after his fateful bout with Rocky, eventually ending up in Ukraine to raise his son alone — which forms the basis of his motivation.
• Written by Cast Member: Written by Sylvester Stallone, who plays the main character Rocky.

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