If you love the Rocky franchise, then you all remember the David and Goliath story of Rocky IV. After reclaiming the boxing championship title, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) plans to retire and live with his wife, Adrian (Talia Shire). However, during an exhibition match, Rocky's friend Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) is mercilessly beaten to death by hulking Russian newcomer Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren). Rocky vows payback against Drago and flies to Russia to train for a Christmas Day fight. Despite their different training methods, Rocky and Drago both wage a long and intense match.
That of course is what we know. In this Little Top 10 we will discuss the little unknown facts you most likely did not know about Rocky IV.
1. Dolph Lundgren only has a small number of major lines in the movie.
Little know actor from Sweden, Dolph Lundgren at 27 years old had never really been in a production of this size at the time. He was cast due to his intimidating look, freakish size, and lets be honest his on screen presence. The very few words you hear him speak were supposed to intimidate and give the character an ultimate villain persona.
2. Tony Burton is actually an accomplished chess player.
Anthony Mabron "Tony" Burton (March 23, 1937 – February 25, 2016) was an American actor, boxer, and football player. He was known for his role as Tony "Duke" Evers in the Rocky Franchise. What you may not have known was that he was a seasoned chess player as well. He actually beat Stanley Kubrick on the set of the The Shining.
3. Ivan Drago was meant to be a much different character than Apollo Creed or Clubber Lang.
Creed and Lang were loud, kind of obnoxious, and obviously far more vocal. Drago was meant to be silent, ominous, and deadly. It was the lack of dialog that was supposed to give a more brooding tone to the character.
4. “I must break you.” was one of the most iconic lines of the movie.
Originally the line, " I must break you," was supposed to be spoken in Russian. The words came out differently and did not sound as intimidating as the English version. This line has become one of the most popular spoken lines in pop culture and is used in almost every occasion even now.
5. It was the highest grossing movie of the series.
You’ve got to remember that the Rocky movies didn’t start out with a bang. Parts 1 and 2 weren’t really that popular until later on. According to Box Office Mojo, Rocky IV, Rocky III and the original Rocky lead the list of top-grossing boxing movies, earning $127 million, $125 million and $117 million as a lifetime gross in United States theaters.
Box office. Rocky IV opened Wednesday, November 27 and over the 5-day Thanksgiving weekend, it grossed a record $31,770,105. It grossed a total of $127.8 million in United States and Canada, and $300 million worldwide, the most of any Rocky film.
6. The rumor is that the character of Ivan Drago returned home and eventually committed suicide.
Before Creed II was released in November of 2018, Ivan Drago was never supposed to come back. After 1985 Ivan Drago was an outcast, an alcoholic, and someone nobody would ever use for political purposes again. In a sense Rocky "broke him," rumor's had it that after losing that fight and his deep guilty conscience of killing Apollo Creed, Ivan Drago committed suicide in the Ukraine. This however never came to pass.
7. More than 8,000 people auditioned for the role of Ivan Drago.
Before he was Ivan Drago, He-Man or an "Expendable," Dolph Lundgren was just another 6-foot-5-inch Swedish male model with a black belt in karate and a degree in chemical engineering. The line of Ivan Drago candidates was long. Sylvester Stallone picked the young model out of a line up due to his height and physique. It was Grace Jones and Sylvester Stallone who were both credited in giving Dolph the start to a very lucrative career in Hollywood.
8. Stallone had to talk Weathers into staying on for the film.
Turns out there was quite a bit of drama behind the scenes. Dolph Lundgeren's fighting style was at times a little to aggressive for Carl Weathers. Weathers was ready to walk off the set and quit, but Stallone manage to talk to him and get him back on board, so long as Lundgren agreed to stop being so aggressive.
9. Stallone took the real punching a little too far.
He told Lundgren to just go for it and really hit him. Eventually his heart swelled from the force of the punches and he had to be rushed to the hospital for medical attention.
After watching the legendary war between middleweight boxers Marvin Hagler and Tommy Hearns, Stallone decided to ask co-star Lundgren, who played Rocky's nemesis Ivan Drago, to really try and knock him out in one of their fight scenes. Well, he got what he asked for.
"Hey I got an idea, for the first 45 seconds, really try to knock me out, I mean go for it," Stallone explains. "Bad idea. He comes across—boom, boom! He catches me in the chest. Woah. Cut, cut cut, I am directing so I can do that. CUT CUT. He says, 'What?' I said, 'What? I thought I had a car accident!
"Later that night my blood pressure goes up to 260, I go to hospital, they put me in an emergency jet and fly me back to America. Next thing I know I’m in intensive care for five days with nuns walking around." Stallone went on to say that the insurance company would not pay out until after they saw the footage of the incident. Once they did, they wrote the check. “He hit my heart so hard that it banged against my ribs and started to swell, and that usually happens in car accidents. So I was hit by a truck!”
"Sometimes Charity Hurts....."
10. Carl Weathers and Dolph Lundgren did not get along.
At one point Lundgren actually flung Weathers into the turnbuckle for real, almost sparking a major fight between the two of them.
Some of these Little Facts were common knowledge, but still very surprising.
