News

Viewers often find it quite amusing whenever a popular series features characters that are inspired by real-life personalities. And by no surprise, one of the most highly acclaimed sports anime, Hajime no Ippo, also draws inspiration from a few notable boxers you might have already heard of.

Out of all the characters the series has, Sendo Takeshi’s character is particularly noteworthy, but not because of the obvious reasons. Surely, he does show a great amount of resilience throughout the series and is one of the most well-written characters overall, but there’s something more that makes his character exceptionally iconic.

Hajime no Ippo | Credit: Madhouse

Fans are convinced that his character pays a subtle yet unmistakable homage to the renowned American actor and filmmaker Sylvester Stallone, specifically his iconic portrayal of Rocky Marciano from the 2006 movie, Rocky Balboa!

Hajime no Ippo‘s tribute to Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Marciano...

Alright, let’s call a spade a spade—this is shaping up to be an absolute barnburner. A clash of the titans, you might say, but not the kind you’re used to seeing in the squared circle.

In one corner, you’ve got Conor McGregor, a UFC legend who made his mark as the first-ever dual-weight world champion. And in the other, Logan Paul—a man who carved out his own lane in the boxing world and WWE, and arguably does just as much for the sport outside of the ring as he does inside of it.

And, if the rumors are to be believed, these two are set to face off in 2025 on the grand stage of Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium. Oh, and the paycheck?

Conor McGregor in Road House | Credits: Prime Video

Well, the reported payout will be $250 million. Both McGregor and Paul are rumored to pocket this eye-popping sum,...

The Featherweight follows retired boxer Willie Pep as he tries to mount a career comeback while wrestling with a plethora of family and financial issues in 1964 Hartford, Connecticut. Shot in a pseudo-documentary, cinema verit style on grainy 16Mm stock, the characters break the fourth wall and speak directly to the camera as the plot unfolds. Director Robert Kolodny deserves top marks for creative filmmaking in his debut feature. He expertly recreates Pep's matches while intercutting classic newsreel footage and staged reaction shots. This slice of life perspective and an engaging ensemble keeps your attention span as a predictable narrative wears thin.

James Madio, forever immortalized as "Don't Ask" in Steven Spielberg's Hook as a child actor, stars as the loquacious and headstrong Pep, who won 229 fights, held the featherweight championship twice, and is widely considered as one of the greatest boxers of all time. We're introduced to the 42-year-old...

Tony Lo Bianco, who played the key role of Sal Boca in Best Picture Oscar winner The French Connection and appeared in more than 100 films and TV shows during a 60-year screen career, died Tuesday of prostate cancer at his home in Maryland. He was 87.

A rep confirmed his death to Fox News today.

Lo Bianco got his start guesting on 1960s TV series including The Doctors, Get Smart! and N.Y.P.D. before landing a big-screen star turn in 1970’s The Honeymoon Killers. That led to his signature role as Salvatore “Sal” Buco in William Friedkin’s seminal New York crime drama The French Connection the following year. His character is at the center of a drug deal followed by NYPD Detective Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman). The film won five Oscars including Best Picture and Lead Actor for Hackman.

Roy Scheider, left, and Tony Lo Bianco in ‘The French Connection,...

Tony Lo Bianco, the Brooklyn actor who oozed criminal charm in the gritty 1970s New York City dramas The French Connection and The Seven-Ups, has died. He was 87.

Lo Bianco died Tuesday night of prostate cancer at his horse farm in Poolesville, Maryland, his wife, Alyse, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Lo Bianco was also memorable as a smooth-talking con man with a lonely nurse (Shirley Stoler) for a girlfriend/accomplice in Leonard Kastle’s documentary-style The Honeymoon Killers (1970), which Francois Truffaut once said was his favorite American film.

In another cult classic, the horror thriller God Told Me To (1976), directed by Larry Cohen, Lo Bianco starred as a New York cop who investigates a series of bizarre murders orchestrated by the leader of a religious group (Richard Lynch).

He received a best actor Tony nomination in 1983 for playing Eddie Carbone in a revival of Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge,...

Revolving around the storyline of a small-time boxer from Philadelphia, the Rocky franchise breasted a new set of fire into Sylvester Stallone and his repute in Hollywood. The ‘70s saw a meteoric rise in action content and the rise of legendary heroes of the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sean Connery, and Clint Eastwood. Differentiating himself from the rest, the Rocky Balboa star set on quite a different path for his career, one that would have the studio question their faith in him before betting big.

Sylvester Stallone at the 66th Venice Film Festival | Nicolas Genin for Wikimedia Commons

Comprising nine movies, the pop culture-defining action franchise originally had quite a different set of plans than what made it on screen. Additionally, the initial reluctance set forth by the production house could have derailed not only Stallone’s career as a revered action hero but also the mass appeal of the franchise.

Norby Walters, a music agent who worked with Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Marvin Gaye, Kool & the Gang and Public Enemy before gaining renown in Hollywood for his annual “Night of 100 Stars” Oscar party and weekly poker game, has died. He was 91.

Walters died Dec. 10 of natural causes at an assisted living facility in Burbank, his son, producer Gary Michael Walters (Whiplash), told The Hollywood Reporter.

Walters hosted his first Oscar night gala in 1990 and the last in 2017, most often inside the Beverly Hilton’s Crystal Ballroom. Among those who attended were Shirley Jones, Robert Forster, Charles Bronson, Patricia Neal, Richard Dreyfuss, Eva Marie Saint, Martin Landau, Louis Gossett Jr., J.K. Simmons, Cliff Robertson, Red Buttons, Jon Voight and Allison Janney.

Walters for years also presided over a weekly poker game at his West Hollywood high-rise condo. The low-stakes $2 game was, his son said, “designed to be a place where actors could kibbutz,...

Marisa Pavan, the Italian actress and twin sister of Pier Angeli who received an Oscar nomination for her performance as the daughter of Anna Magnani’s seamstress in the 1955 drama The Rose Tattoo, has died. She was 91.

Pavan died Wednesday in her sleep at her home in Gassin, France, near Saint-Tropez, Margaux Soumoy, who wrote Pavan’s 2021 biography, Drop the Baby; Put a Veil on the Broad!, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Pavan also portrayed the French queen Catherine de’ Medici in Diane (1956), starring Lana Turner; an Italian girl who had an affair years ago with a corporate exec (Gregory Peck) in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956); and the love interest of a former cop (Tony Curtis) investigating the murder of a priest in the film noir The Midnight Story (1957).

In Paramount’s The Rose Tattoo (1955), an adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play that won four Tony Awards, including best play,...

Pat Cooper, the brash Italian-American stand-up from Brooklyn whose anger real and imagined provided fuel for a long career in comedy, has died. He was 93.

Cooper died Tuesday night at his home in Las Vegas, his wife, Emily Conner, announced.

A mainstay in nightclubs from Atlantic City to Las Vegas, Cooper opened for Ginger Rogers at the Desert Inn and Frank Sinatra at the Sands. He said he once refused to take out a joke about an upside-down St. Anthony statue that Sinatra wanted excised and never worked with the singer again.

Also known for his nonstop, rapid-fire delivery, Cooper appeared as himself on the 1996 Seinfeld episode “The Friars Club” — he participated in many a roast at that famed comedic establishment in midtown Manhattan — and made regular appearances on late-night talk shows, for Ed Sullivan and, starting in the 1980s, on Howard Stern’s radio program.

The bespectacled comic played...

Creed III hinted at Amara Creed's future storyline in the series, and she already has a great real-life inspiration for Creed IV. Amara Creed is the daughter of the series' main character Adonis Creed, and while she hasn't had a huge role in prior films, Amara did get a slightly larger role in Creed III. It seems like she'll be getting even more of a spotlight in Creed IV, and the character's arc could mirror that of a true story.

Born in Creed II, Amara is the daughter of Adonis Creed and Bianca Taylor. Bianca's hearing loss has been present since the original Creed, but when Amara was born, the couple found out that their daughter would be fully deaf. This hasn't hindered Amara, who has grown up into a fierce young girl in the several years since Creed II. Creed III reveals that Amara wants to be a fighter,...

For the first time in 47 years, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) wasn't in his own franchise, but fans lamenting the absence of The Italian Stallion in Creed 3 shouldn't write off a return in Creed 4 - after all, his story has ended three times before in other Rocky movies. Creed 3 saw Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) take on his fiercest challenger yet in Damian "Diamond Dame" Anderson (Jonathan Majors), a former childhood friend turned contender for the World Heavyweight Championship. For the first time in two Creed films, Rocky wasn't in his protégé's corner, and Donnie had to fight the man he once considered a brother alone.

Creed 3 was about letting the past die and looking to the future, and while some fans aren't getting their hopes up for Stallone returning as Rocky in Creed 4, the movie leaves a couple of ways to complete his arc in the future.

I have to admit that I thought "Rocky Balboa" sounded pretty awful at first. 16 years after the popular franchise came to a disappointing close with "Rocky V," Sylvester Stallone was bringing his famous fighter back for one last shot at glory in his sixties. Surely it was going to be bad, right? Instead, Stallone proved once again that you can never write off the Italian Stallion, creating one of the most emotionally-satisfying entries in the whole series, a movie that took a heartfelt look at aging, loneliness, and grief before delivering a typically rousing finale. It is a fitting end to the "Rocky" saga in a way the fifth movie definitely wasn't, which is what motivated Stallone to give Rocky another comeback. He told the Chicago Sun-Times:

"I wanted to wrap up Rocky's story with a sense of hope, and 'Rocky V' didn't have that feeling at all.

Exclusive: Grossinger’s Catskill Resort Hotel, which inspired Dirty Dancing and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, is getting its own feature doc treatment.

The Borscht Belt resort in upstate New York, which catered to a large Jewish clientele, is to be the subject of a new documentary from Bungalow Media + Entertainment.

It is one of a number of documentary and unscripted projects from the company founded by Robert Friedman, which is also behind Little Richard: I Am Everything, the Dee Rees-exec produced CNN feature doc that is premiering at Sundance, and Discovery+’s Serving The Hamptons.

The Grossinger’s project will be directed by Paula Eiselt, who directed 2022 Sundance darling Aftershock, which was picked up by Hulu. Harris Salomon exec produces the project, which has just started production. Private equity investor David Moore, who is a minority investor in NBA team Atlanta Hawks, is funding the doc.

It will...

Cinematographer George Steel laid out a color map for Barry Levinson’s “The Survivor,” the HBO movie based on a true story that follows Harry Haft (Ben Foster), an Auschwitz survivor who is forced by the Nazis to box other prisoners. In 1953, he made headlines going up against Rocky Marciano.

To tell the story, the film traced three different time periods.

“We shot the camps in black and white,” Steel says. “The post-war world was shot in a desaturated color palette with more color returning to the image as we reach the ’60s.”

The most challenging aspect was settling on which palette to shoot the camp in, with Steel try- ing numerous tests.

“We had experimented with doing this in reverse, but the camp footage was too disturbing in color,” he says.

For the black-and-white footage, his approach was to have it feel like found footage.

“It was mismatched, underexposed and push processed.

Today marks the beginning of Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah) in Israel, and it is no coincidence that HBO Max chose this day to release their Holocaust drama "The Survivor." The film tells the remarkable true story of Harry Haft, a Polish Jew who lived through the horrors of Auschwitz during World War II by boxing fellow inmates for the amusement of his Nazi captors. Once he escapes the horrors of the camps, he sets out on a professional boxing career in post-war America, seeking to take on the great Rocky Marciano but not to win. Rather, he wants the publicity...

The post Barry Levinson And Ben Foster On Telling The Harrowing Tale Of The Survivor [Interview] appeared first on /Film.

When it came time for director Barry Levinson to cast the role of famed boxing trainer Charlie Goldman in his new film “The Survivor,” he went straight to his friend Danny DeVito. “This was all Barry,” DeVito said about how he came to be a part of the HBO Holocaust film, telling TheWrap it was like no time had passed at all since he and Levinson first worked together on the 1987 film “Tin Men.”

“The Survivor” tells the true story of Harry Haft, a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp who was forced to box other inmates to survive – sometimes to the death. The film – which premieres on HBO and HBO Max on Wednesday timed to Yom HaShoa (Holocaust Remembrance Day) – plays out in two timelines, as Haft tries to make a life for himself in America after the war but is haunted by the events that happened inside Auschwitz,...

In the late 1940s, when Barry Levinson was a young boy, his family hosted a guest — his grandmother’s brother. The man’s name was Simka, and he shared a room with Levinson for a two-week period before moving away. Levinson remembers the man thrashing in his sleep and mumbling in a foreign language for some reason, but, as a young boy, he couldn’t understand why.

It wasn’t until years later that he learned that Simka was a survivor of the Holocaust, and his fits were a symptom of what is now recognized as post-traumatic stress disorder. Those memories came flooding back to Levinson when he first read Justine Juell Gillmer’s screenplay of “The Survivor.”

Levinson’s latest film, premiering April 27 on HBO, stars Ben Foster as Harry Haft, a real man who survived Auschwitz by boxing other prisoners at the behest of the Nazis. After making it out alive,...

For their HBO Max film The Survivor, which chronicles the real-life journey of Harry Haft, a concentration camp prisoner forced to box to survive his internment, both director Barry Levinson and star Ben Foster found compelling connections to the story through their own families, as well as disturbing parallels to currently unfolding history.

“I was about five years old and late 40s living with my parents and my grandparents in a small house, and a man showed up at the door,” recalled Levinson during Deadline’s Contenders Television panel alongside Foster. “His name was Simka and it turned out that it was my grandmother’s brother – and I never knew she had a brother – and they started talking to one another in a language which I didn’t understand.”

Levinson recounted how his great-uncle stayed with the family for two weeks in the bedroom across from the future filmmaker. “I...

"I'm just giving you a chance to lose with a little dignity!" HBO has revealed the first official trailer for The Survivor, a WWII biopic from filmmaker Barry Levinson. This premiered at the 2021 Toronto Film Festival last fall and received mostly positive reviews then. Levinson's biographical drama stars Ben Foster as boxer Harry Haft, who struggles to carry on after fighting to survive in the Holocaust. Post World War II, Harry Haft is a boxer who fought fellow prisoners in the concentration camps to survive. Haunted by memories and guilt, he attempts to use high-profile fights against boxing legends like Rocky Marciano as a way to find his first love again. In addition to Ben Foster, the impressive cast includes Danny DeVito, John Leguizamo, Peter Sarsgaard, Billy Magnussen, Paul Bates, Anthony Molinari as Rocky Marciano, as well ...

Following its world premiere at Toronto, HBO Films has taken exclusive North American rights to Barry Levinson’s The Survivor about Holocaust survivor and U.S. boxer Harry Haft. Ben Foster plays Haft in the movie, which marks a reteam with his Liberty Heights writer-director Levinson. Deal was 8-figures, making it the biggest one in a subdued Toronto marketplace.

After being sent to Auschwitz, Haft survived not only the unspeakable horrors of the camp but the gladiatorial boxing spectacle he was forced to perform with his fellow prisoners for the amusement of his captors. Unbeknownst to those who try to destroy him, Haft is driven by the most important reason any man has to survive: a quest to reunite with the woman he loves. After a daring escape, he makes his way to New York, where he succeeds in using his boxing skills to establish a name for himself in...

When Vicky Krieps arrived on set for Barry Levinson’s drama “The Survivor,” the film’s star Ben Foster had already spent time shooting all of the film’s scenes set inside a concentration camp. So when the actress finally met her costar, she described him having put up a “wall” that contained all the character’s own horrors of the camps.

“It was not just a wall of preparation of him as an actor, he had been trying to incorporate the horror of the camps. His body had lost weight, and he had come close to feeling how those people had felt,” Krieps told TheWrap ahead of the film’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. “He was like a sponge, he had soaked up this horror and this energy, and when I met him, he was this, and I didn’t know how to talk to this thing.

Barry Levinson is 79, so it doesn’t seem much of a leap to say that he made “The Survivor,” a true story of the Holocaust, as a late-career reckoning. The central character, Harry Haft, played by the remarkable Ben Foster, is a Polish Jew who gets sent to Auschwitz in 1943, where he sees the lowest circle of the inferno of the death camps. But he also becomes a boxer, sparring with other prisoners for the entertainment of the Nazis, and this allows him not to perish. What Harry does makes him, in effect, a cousin to the Sonderkommandos, the work units comprised of death-camp prisoners whose lives were extended because they did the grisly work of disposing of gas-chamber victims. “The Survivor” confronts the question of whether Harry was making a deal with the devil. But since Harry is a fighter, and a good one, in movie terms he also...

Ben Foster gives a committed performance as a Polish Jew who survived a Nazi death camp and became a boxer in a derivative yet confident film

Director Barry Levinson brings the confidence of a professional lifetime to this heartfelt true story of Herschel “Harry” Haft, a tough Polish Jew who boxed as a light heavyweight in the postwar United States, even taking on Rocky Marciano. But he was trained in boxing in the Nazi concentration camp of Jaworzno in Nazi-occupied Poland, part of a grotesque gladiatorial entertainment devised by the SS to entertain the bored, cruel officers. The losers died and the winners got to survive.

Related: Lakewood review – Naomi Watts school shooting thriller falls short...

It’s common to talk about an actor disappearing into a role by undergoing a physical transformation – at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, you could say that’s what Jessica Chastain does for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye.” But Ben Foster’s transformation in Barry Levinson’s “The Survivor,” which had its world premiere at TIFF on Monday, is something different — because he morphs into Holocaust survivor Harry Haft from two different directions in the same film.

In scenes set in the latter stages of Haft’s life, Foster is doughy and sluggish, only slightly recognizable as the actor we know from films like “The Messenger” and “Leave No Trace.” In scenes set during World War II, when Haft was an inmate at the Auschwitz concentration camp, he’s skeletal and sinewy, with the real Foster just as hard to see. (He lost 62 pounds for those scenes.) It...

, Barry Levinson’s “The Survivor” may be another title on the endless list of films that struggling to depict the atrocities of concentration camps, but it’s one of the few that would have been dramatically improved by not depicting them at all. Unequal parts “Raging Bull” and Peter Solan’s “The Boxer and Death” — better known by its needless American remake “The Triumph of the Spirit” — Levinson’s biopic tells the brutal story of a strapping Polish kid named Hertzko Haft (Ben Foster), who avoided the gas chambers of Jaworzno by sending dozens of other Jewish men there in his place.

By the time the Soviet Red Army swept through the area in 1945, Haft had won 76 of the life-or-death boxing matches staged for the Nazi guards’ amusement, and upon arriving in New York he naturally parlayed his gifts as a pugilist into something of a career. The war was over,...

The remarkable true story of Harry Haft is made even more pertinent by the simple fact that his story has not been the subject of a large-scale feature film — until now. It took a script from a young Australian, Justine Juel Gillmer (who also boxes), to generate interest for Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson, whose own memories as a child in an encounter with a Jewish concentration camp survivor helped spark his interest in the tale of Haft, a man who basically boxed to stay alive in Auschwitz during World War II. Imagine if you had a film with elements of both Raging Bull and Schindler’s List, but with a true story so unique it really becomes its own powerful tale of a man trying to survive the haunting memory of war experiences well beyond the war itself.

Levinson smartly employs a...

Barry Levinson is back at the Toronto International Film Festival with “The Survivor,” the incredible story of Harry Haft, who managed to survive Auschwitz by boxing his fellow prisoners. After moving to America, Haft boxed professionally, having a memorable bout with Rocky Marciano, but continued to be haunted by his experiences in the concentration camps. “The Survivor” dramatizes his battles with post-traumatic stress disorder, while also depicting the immense personal strength that ultimately allowed him to find a way to cope with his past.

Levinson, who made a name for himself directing classics such as “Diner” and “Rain Man,” spoke with Variety before the film’s world premiere on Monday about what inspired him to make “The Survivor,” how he navigates a franchise-obsessed Hollywood and the lengths Ben Foster went to in order to transform himself into Haft.

What drew you to “The Survivor”?

As a little kid, I was...

Barry Levinson has a film and TV track record few Hollywood directors can match.

He earned the best director Oscar for Rain Man in 1999 and helmed classics like Diner (1982), Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Bugsy (1991) and Wag the Dog. Now he’s back with the World War II-era biopic The Survivor, which tells the true story of Harry Haft, a boxer broken by being forced by an SS Nazi officer to fight fellow Jews in Auschwitz, only to narrowly escape to America and box Rocky Marciano as a pro to recapture lost love.

Levinson tells THR his latest directing gig follows reading a scene in the ...

Barry Levinson has a film and TV track record few Hollywood directors can match.

He earned the best director Oscar for Rain Man in 1999 and helmed classics like Diner (1982), Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Bugsy (1991) and Wag the Dog. Now he’s back with the World War II-era biopic The Survivor, which tells the true story of Harry Haft, a boxer broken by being forced by an SS Nazi officer to fight fellow Jews in Auschwitz, only to narrowly escape to America and box Rocky Marciano as a pro to recapture lost love.

Levinson tells THR his latest directing gig follows reading a scene in the ...

The Toronto International Film Festival kicks off Thursday with a slimmed-down lineup of just 100 films, the buzziest of which already have distribution. “Dune,” “Spencer,” and “Dear Evan Hansen” are all screening at TIFF, but with one odd twist: They’re only available to watch in person, while the majority of industry attendees will be logging on to the festival remotely.

It’s an unusual quirk in a two-year period of nothing but unusual quirks: TIFF is the only fall festival offering a robust online component. And while the festival is known as a launchpad for awards campaigns, that element will be largely absent from the way the majority of people participate in the proceedings. That, coupled with the fact that buyers have returned in force and are feeling more optimistic despite the Delta variant, could mean greater attention to a slate of titles that range from discoveries to awards bait with bankable elements.

The first images were just released for Clint Eastwood's new western Cry Macho. After seeing the trailer, you know this is going to be another smash. Clint Eastwood opposite a young troubled teen who must begrudgingly take the old man's help smuggling him out of Mexico. Throw in a dollop of Dwight Yoakum, and you've got yourself a recipe for a stirring, tender but tough story of redemption for an old man, and a second chance for a young one.

The official Warner Bros. synopsis reads, "Based on the book, Cry Macho stars Clint Eastwood as a one-time rodeo star and washed-up horse breeder who, in 1978, takes a job from an ex-boss to bring the man's young son home and away from his alcoholic mom. Crossing rural Mexico on their way back to Texas, the unlikely pair faces an unexpectedly challenging journey, during which the world-weary horseman may find...

Coming to America remains one of Eddie Murphy’s funniest comedies. As a still reliable go-to example of fish out of water humor done right, as well as a vicarious fantasy about a fairy tale like version of Africa, the film has endured for more than 30 years. In its day, (mostly white) film critics dismissed the picture as vulgar and crass, but audiences found the laughs in Murphy at the peak of his skill and popularity, particularly whenever he donned a bucket full of makeup.

In the movie, Murphy primarily plays Prince Akeem, heir to the throne of the fictional kingdom of Zamunda and a man in desperate need of a modern, free-thinking wife. Hence he rejects his arranged marriage and flees to the United States, ending up in (where else?) Queens, New York.

The film is a showcase of Murphy’s talent at not only playing wide-eyed nobility but also,...

We're already hooked on CBS's Young Rock, a sitcom based on Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's adolescence. Johnson's show is a hilarious look at his eccentric upbringing, and his experiences growing up with his wrestling icon dad Rocky Johnson (plus all his famous wrestling pals). It's clear from watching the premiere that Rocky served as a major inspiration for Dwayne, both as a father and an athlete. While Rocky sadly passed away in 2020, there's still so much to learn about the man, the myth, and the legend who helped raise The Rock.

Rocky Johnson, otherwise known as Soul Man, was a Canadian-American WWE hall-of-famer on the scene in the 1980s. He teamed up with fellow wrestler Tony Atlas to form "The Soul Patrol," together becoming the first African-American World Tag Team Champions in WWE history. He's famous to this day as being "the king of the drop-kick."

Born Wayde Douglas Bowles,...

Get out your star-spangled boxing shorts, and prepare to partake in an inspiring training montage. A documentary about the making of the Rocky franchise is making its way to digital on-demand on June 9. Virgil Films and Entertainment will be releasing the behind-the-scenes peek at the world of Rocky, with the star of the series Sylvester Stallone providing narration. 40 Years of Rocky: The Birth of a Classic is directed by Derek Wayne Johnson, who issued the following statement regarding the release.

"The documentary is a golden nugget for Rocky fans and casual audiences alike. It's a charming piece of film history narrated by Rocky himself, Sylvester Stallone, and will give audiences an intimate, and at times, emotional experience. We're proud of the film, and audiences can expect new stories and new footage that they've never seen before in a blend of director John Avildsen's home movies, rehearsal footage, and behind-the-scenes footage...

Well, that argument’s settled: Ken Jennings may now be hailed as the best “Jeopardy!” player in history, having earned the coveted Goat title – and a cool million dollars, to boot – this week after defeating James Holzhauer and Brad Rutter at the show’s “Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time” multi-part tournament. But their spectacular matchup almost never happened at all.

The way Jennings tells it, “Jeopardy!” producers had called him up last fall, not too long after Holzhauer’s 32-game run on the show ended, in an attempt to entice him back to the buzzer. They angled for a tournament ahead of Christmas. He was resistant.

“This is the part of the story that makes me look like an idiot,” says Jennings with a laugh. “I’d suspected this would be coming down the pipe one of these years. After James made such a splash, I knew people were...

Dwayne Johnson has posted a heartfelt tribute to his late father, professional wrestling hall of famer Rocky Johnson. “You broke color barriers, became a ring legend and trail blazed your way thru this world,” The Rock wrote on Instagram before offering a poignant hope: “I want you to rest your trailblazing soul, Soulman.”

The W.W.E. announced Rocky Johnson’s death Wednesday, with no cause given. He was 75.

Read Dwayne Johnson’s Instagram tribute below, which includes a vintage video snippet of Rocky Johnson in the ring and his adoring young son Dwayne watching from the seats. Among those offering condolences in the thread are Kevin Hart, Terry Crews and J.J. Watt.

Born Wayde Douglas Bowle in 1944, the young man from Toronto took up boxing and changed his name to Rocky Johnson in honor of boxing greats Rocky Marciano and Jack Johnson. His professional wrestling career began in the...

After another transformative year, “Leave No Trace” and “Hell or High Water” star Ben Foster is slipping into one more immersive role. Foster is currently shooting Barry Levinson’s fact-based drama “Harry Haft,” which sees the actor taking on yet another demanding part, the kind the actor seems to thrive on. Based on the true story of Haft — which was dramatized in the novel “Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano” by Alan Scott Haft, Haft’s own son — the film will weave together the incredible drama of Haft’s life, from his time spent in Auschwitz to his eventual escape to New York City and its brutal professional boxing scene, all in hopes of recapturing a great lost love.

Per its current synopsis, the film follows Harry Haft, “who is driven by his love of a woman to survive the unimaginable horrors of the German concentration camps.

Exclusive: When Deadline first revealed the fact-based historical drama Harry Haft was being put together by Bron Studios and New Mandate Films with Barry Levinson directing and Ben Foster starring, the premise seemed impossible to imagine. Based on the Justine Juel Gillmer Black List script adaptation of the Alan Scott Haft novel Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano, the film tells the story of a boxer who survived Auschwitz by being forced to fight fellow prisoners in the concentration camps in ghoulish gladiatorial battles. If he won, he got fed and allowed to live long enough for the next bout, while the 76 opponents he beat were led to their deaths in the camps. Haunted by the memories and guilt over the price of survival, Haft attempts to use high-profile fights against boxing legends like Rocky Marciano as a way to rediscover a reason to live and to...

Production underway on Second World War saga starring Ben Foster.

Danny DeVito, Vicky Krieps, Peter Sarsgaard, Saro Emirze, Dar Zuzovsky and John Leguizamo have joined the cast of Barry Levinson’s Harry Haft, which Bron Studios and New Mandate Films are producing in association with Creative Wealth Media.

Production began on February 25 on location in Hungary and is scheduled to wrap in New York in spring.

Previously announced Ben Foster stars in the title role on the true story about a man driven by his love of a woman to survive Auschwitz in the Second World War where he is...

Danny DeVito, Phantom Thread actress Vicky Krieps, Peter Sarsgaard, John Leguizamo, Saro Emirze, and Dar Zuzovsky are set for Harry Haft, the Barry Levinson-directed film based on the novel Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano by Alan Scott Haft. The group joins previously announced titular star Ben Foster as production is currently underway with plans to shoot on location in Hungary and New York.

New Mandate Film’s Matti Leshem, Bron Studios’ Aaron L. Gilbert, Jason Sosnoff, Levinson, and Scott Pardo are producing the project.

Justine Juel Gillmer (The 100 series) penned the screenplay. It’s based on the true story of a man (Foster) who is driven by his love of a woman to survive the unimaginable horrors of the German concentration camps. An SS Officer (Billy Magnussen) forces Harry to fight to the death against fellow prisoners in gruesome gladiatorial boxing matches. Harry finally escapes...

Danny DeVito, Vicky Krieps, Peter Sarsgaard, Saro Emirze, Dar Zuzovsky, and John Leguizamo have joined Ben Foster in boxing drama “Harry Haft” with Barry Levinson directing.

Bron Studios and New Mandate Films are producing in association with Creative Wealth Media, which is financing the movie. The film began production Feb. 25 in Hungary and New York.

Levinson is directing and producing from a screenplay by Justine Juel Gillmer, based on the novel “Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano” by Alan Scott Haft. The film is set post-World War II and stars Foster as Harry Haft, a boxer who fought fellow prisoners in the concentration camps to survive. Haunted by the memories and his guilt, he attempts to use high-profile fights against boxing legends like Rocky Marciano as a way to find his first love again.

Besides Levinson, producers are New Mandate Film’s Matti Leshem (“The Shallows”), Bron’s Aaron L. Gilbert,...

In today’s film news roundup, Ben Foster is playing a boxer, Corbin Bernsen will portray a real estate developer and vampire fantasy “Empire V” is selling at Afm.

Castings

Ben Foster has signed on to star in boxing drama “Harry Haft” with Barry Levinson directing. Bron Studios and New Mandate Films are producing in association with Creative Wealth Media, which is financing the film.

Levinson is directing and producing from a screenplay by Justine Juel Gillmer, based on the novel “Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano” by Alan Scott Haft. The film is set post-World War II and will star Foster as Harry Haft, a boxer who fought fellow prisoners in the concentration camps to survive. Haunted by the memories and his guilt, he attempts to use high-profile fights against boxing legends like Rocky Marciano as a way to find his first love again.

Besides Levinson,...

Exclusive: Bron Studios and New Mandate Films have set a February production start on Harry Haft, a fact-based historical drama that Barry Levinson will direct, with Ben Foster set to star as the title character. Justine Juel Gillmer wrote a Black List script based on the Alan Scott Haft novel ‘Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano.‘ the film tells the story of a boxer who survived Auschwitz by being forced to fight fellow prisoners in the concentration camps in ghoulish gladiatorial battles. If he won, he got fed and allowed to live long enough for the next bout, while the 76 opponents he beat were led to their deaths in the camps. Haunted by the memories and guilt over the price of survival, Haft attempts to use high-profile fights against boxing legends like Rocky Marciano as a way to rediscover a reason to live and to again find...

After months of hype, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor stepped in the ring for a historical fight, with Mayweather winning by Tko in the 10th round. Mayweather’s win against the Ufc fighter puts his record at 50-0, surpassing Rocky Marciano’s record of 49-0. The fight, which was proposed by Conan O'Brien two years ago when McGregor was a guest on his late-night TBS show, was a groundbreaking event, as it was McGregor’s debut fight. As a Ufc fighter he is used to…...

As the Summer starts to fade, the multiplex looks again to sports films, those (like the “sport” of movie viewing) which are set indoors, away from the harsh cold winds. We’re not talking hockey or basketball, but rather the “mano y mano” battle that seems almost tailor-made for movies, boxing. Of course, there are many times when the boxing flick has been mixed with other genres. Just last year we had a boxing/ family tear-jerker with Southpaw and a boxing/ fantasy/ franchise-reboot Creed (it squeezed a few tears from audiences, too). This time out (perhaps to be an early Oscar contender), we’re seeing a pugilistic biography, a mix that goes back to the dawn of cinema. The 1940’s had Gentleman Jim, and the 50’s had Paul Newman as Rocky Marciano in Somebody Up There Likes Me. The greatest true-life boxing biopic may be 1980’s Raging Bull with an Oscar-winning turn by Robert DeNiro.

THR is reporting that Jeremy Renner will star as Rocky Marciano in Undefeated: The Rocky Marciano Story, a planned biopic about the legendary boxer. The project doesn't have a director yet, but Samuel Franco (The New Adventures of Robin Hood) and Evan Kilgore (Butterflies Of Bill Baker) have been tapped to write the script. Born Rocco Francis Marchegiano, Marciano held the world heavyweight title from... Read More...

facebook

twitter

google+

Jeremy Renner will go from Hawkeye to playing the undefeated heavyweight boxing champion, Rocky Marciano...

A biopic of the boxer Rocky Marciano has landed its lead actor, with Jeremy Renner set to take the role on.

The film is going to go by the name of Undefeated: The Rocky Marciano Story, and it'll tell the tale of Marciano, the heavyweight boxing champion who quit the ring after winning 49 bouts, and losing none of them.

Samuel Franco and Evan Kilgore have penned the screenplay for this one, with Morris S Levy producing the film. The hunt is currently on for a director to take on the project.

Renner will be seen reprising the role of Hawkeye on the big scren next April in Captain America: Civil War.

More on Undefeated: The Rocky Marciano Story as we hear it.

THR.

Check out Den of Geek T-Shirts Here Movies

facebook...

While this year saw the return of Rocky Balboa training the son of Apollo Creed on the path of becoming a new boxing champion, Jeremy Renner is looking to tell the story of a real boxer named Rocky in a new biopic. The Bourne Legacy and The Avengers franchise star is attached to star in […]

The post Jeremy Renner Will Be ‘Undefeated’ in Biopic About Boxer Rocky Marciano appeared first on /Film.

Hollywood loves few things more than a good boxing movie. When Sylvester Stallone brought Rocky to the silver screen back in 1976, he proved that the sport was ripe for all the drama necessary for an Oscar winning movie – a notion only reaffirmed by Robert DeNiro’s take on Jake Lamotta in 1980. Despite the multitude of iconic boxers who have been broached by the film industry, few actors have ever taken on the role of one of the most iconic boxers of all time. Now Jeremy Renner will endeavor to do just that by lacing up the gloves of Rocky Marciano. A new report from THR indicates that Renner is slated to portray legendary boxer Rocky Marciano in a new biopic chronicling the fighter’s life. The report states that the film will follow the life of the iconic boxer from his earliest years all the way ...

Jeremy Renner has been cast as legendary boxer Rocky Marciano in a new biopic being developed by producer Morris S. Levy. Marciano held the heavyweight champion title from 1952 to 1956, and what makes Marciano such a badass is the fact that he is the only heavyweight boxing champion ever to retire undefeated with a record of 49-0.

The story for the film will follow Marciano from his days as a kid to his death in a plane crash in 1969. The script is being written by Samuel Franco and Evan Kilgore, and Levy is currently on the hunt for a director.

Renner is an incredible actor whose career really took off after he starred in The Hurt Locker. Now most of us just know him as Hawkeye from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's great to see that he landed such a great lead role in this movie. He seems like he is the perfect fit.