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I Play Rocky, the film about Sylvester Stallone writing the 1976 boxing classic, has an Oscar question that goes to the heart of its subject: is a new story about the making of Rocky an original screenplay if it also brings back characters and scenes from that film?
Variety reports that Amazon MGM Studios, the Writers Guild of America, the Academy and the film’s creative team have discussed where Peter Gamble’s script belongs. The classification remains undecided, with the Academy’s Writers Branch executive committee set to make the determination.
The answer would establish which screenplay category the film could compete in, rather than whether it will be nominated. The distinction matters because Gamble’s script was conceived as an original work, yet the finished film draws on material audiences already know from Rocky.
A new script with familiar characters
Gamble wrote I Play Rocky on spec, meaning he drafted it before it was commissioned. His script was not based on a book, article, memoir or another single published work. That history offers one way to understand the case for treating it as original: the project began as a screenplay in its own right, rather than as a straightforward screen version of one identifiable source.
There is another side to the question. The film revisits preexisting characters including Rocky Balboa, Adrian and Apollo Creed, and restages some scenes from Stallone’s Rocky. Some people involved in the discussions are weighing whether those elements make adapted screenplay the better fit.
That makes the issue more specific than whether the movie is about real events or whether its writer created a new script. The screenplay tells a story about the creation of an earlier film while also using elements of that film. Those are different kinds of material in the same project, and the classification question turns on how they are assessed together.
The absence of a single source book or article does not erase the presence of Rocky characters and scenes. Equally, their presence does not by itself establish the outcome of the Academy’s decision. Neither side of the comparison is a final ruling.
The route from script to screen also involved several filmmakers. Bellevue Productions shared Gamble’s script with Christian Baha, who joined as a producer alongside Toby Emmerich. Peter Farrelly, director of the best picture winner Green Book, went on to direct I Play Rocky. It is Gamble’s second produced feature screenplay, following 2018’s Office Uprising.
Why the Academy, not the guild, will decide
The Writers Guild’s role has a particular limit in this case. Although Gamble is a WGA member, I Play Rocky was not produced under a WGA signatory agreement. As a result, the guild cannot classify the screenplay or consider it for its own awards.
That leaves the Oscar question to the Academy’s Writers Branch executive committee. The two organizations’ roles should not be confused: the guild’s inability to make a WGA Awards classification is not itself a decision about which Oscar screenplay category applies.
For awards watchers, the practical question is therefore not simply which category the filmmakers intended when the screenplay was written. The Academy’s determination will identify the field in which the script is assessed, if it goes forward in the Oscar race. It does not amount to a nomination or a judgment that the screenplay will win.
The discussion has taken place around a separate Academy paperwork deadline. November 12, 2026, was the final date for studios to submit Official Screen Credits forms for the 99th Academy Awards’ best picture, animated feature and general entry categories. That deadline concerns submissions; it is not a date for announcing the screenplay classification.
I Play Rocky expands nationwide on November 20, 2026. Amazon MGM and the Academy declined to comment to Variety about the classification discussion.
