Rocky V

• Sylvester Stallone as Robert "Rocky" Balboa Sr., "The Italian Stallion": Heavyweight Champion of the World, who suffers from brain damage caused by the head-trauma he received at the hands of Ivan Drago in the previous film. Because of his injuries, Rocky is forced to officially retire from boxing. After moving back to Philadelphia, Rocky agrees to train and manage underdog boxer Tommy Gunn and helps him to rise to fame.
• Talia Shire as Adrian Balboa: Rocky's wife and support throughout his life and his boxing career.
• Burt Young as Paulie Pennino: Rocky's friend, and brother-in-law.
• Sage Stallone as Robert "Rocky" Balboa Jr.: Rocky and Adrian's only son, who gets involved with the wrong crowds during the absence of his father's presence, throughout the training and mentoring of Tommy Gunn.
• Tommy Morrison as Tommy "The Machine" Gunn: Underdog boxer, who rises to fame under the training of beloved Heavyweight Champion of the World, Rocky Balboa. Throughout his career and rise to fame he is called Rocky's "shadow", and angrily seeks out another manager. After his achievements as Heavyweight Champion, and the public's continued dis-appreciation for him, he attempts to fight Rocky in an unofficial street fight, only to lose; proving he was something to be forgotten as the public had repeatedly stated throughout his career.
• Burgess Meredith as Mickey Goldmill: Rocky's deceased friend, manager and trainer; a former bantamweight fighter from the 1920s and the owner of the local boxing gym. Burgess appears in new footage, filmed as a flashback to before Rocky's second fight with Apollo.

• Richard Gant as George Washington Duke: Loud and obnoxious boxing promoter, who repeatedly tries to convince Rocky to re-enter the ring. He becomes Tommy Gunn's manager during his shot at the Heavyweight Champion title.
• Tony Burton as Tony "Duke" Evers: Rocky's friend, and former trainer and manager of Apollo Creed.
• Paul J. Micale as Father Carmine
• Michael Williams as Union Cane: Reigning Heavyweight Champion of the World who wants to fight legendary Rocky, and eventually fights Tommy Gunn, only to lose.

The film has cameos by sportswriters and boxing analysts, including Al Bernstein, Stan Hochman and Al Meltzer, and sportscaster Stu Nahan, who was the ringside announcer in the original Rocky film and was the ring announcer in each Rocky movie, save the sixth and seventh movies. Both Dolph Lundgren and Carl Weathers appear as Ivan Drago and Apollo Creed in archive footage, uncredited.

The character "Tommy Gunn" was played by Tommy Morrison. Morrison's nickname prior to his retirement from boxing was "The Duke" similar to George Washington Duke, who becomes his manager in the movie. Morrison claimed to be the grandnephew of John "The Duke" Wayne.

Michael Williams, who plays Union Cane, was also a real-life boxer. He and Morrison were to have an actual match about a month after Rocky V was released, but had to be canceled when Williams was hurt. The match was being hyped as "The Real Cane vs. Gunn Match."

Jodi Letizia, who played street kid Marie in the original Rocky (1976), was supposed to reprise her role. Her character was shown to have ended up as Rocky predicted she would: a prostitute, but the scene ended up on the cutting room floor. Although she can briefly be seen during the street fight at the end, the character would eventually reappear in Rocky Balboa (2006), as a bartender and confidante to the aging Rocky. Actress Geraldine Hughes took over the role.

Kevin Connolly, who gained success as Eric Murphy on HBO's Entourage, was in his first acting role as neighborhood bully Chickie.

Some of the fight sequences were filmed at The Blue Horizon in Philadelphia, a venue which was a mecca for boxing in the city during the 1970s.

Scenes with Mickey, played by Burgess Meredith, were trimmed in the final film when Rocky fights Tommy. Mickey appeared in ghost form on top of the railway bridge, giving words of encouragement. In the final film, this was made into flashbacks. The speech Mickey gives to Rocky in the flashback sequence is based on an interview with Cus D'Amato given in 1985, shortly after Mike Tyson's first professional bout.

The image of Gunn's first professional fight, the pullback from the mural of Jesus over the boxing ring, mirrors the opening shot of the first Rocky movie. Adrian goes back to working at the pet shop she first worked at in the original Rocky.

The golden glove necklace featured so prominently in the film was first seen in Rocky II, where it was worn by Apollo Creed, then again throughout Rocky III and Rocky IV. As a promotional gimmick, replicas of the necklace were distributed to moviegoers at the Hollywood premiere of Rocky V at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

The famous red, white and blue boxing trunks first worn by Apollo Creed in his fight with Rocky in the first film make their fifth and final appearance in this film. Rocky's leather coat introduced in Rocky makes its third and final appearance in the franchise at the start of the movie.

The Ring magazine belt in Rocky's basement and the identical belt Morrison wins in the ring have changed slightly from the previous movies; they are missing the four side panels showing famous champions (from left to right) Floyd Patterson, James J. Corbett, George Foreman, and James J. Braddock.

Professional wrestling veteran Terry Funk helped choreograph much of the street fight between Rocky and Tommy Gunn. Funk's name appears in the end credits of the film.

In the original script, Rocky is killed during the final fight with Tommy, dying in Adrian's arms in the street.[3] Through most of the filming and production, this was to be the outcome; it was not until the film was nearing completion that Stallone decided against Rocky's death, and switched to the film's eventual ending. According to him, the director and the studio had second thoughts. Eventually, Stallone rewrote the ending, saying that he decided to change it because Rocky was supposed to be about perseverance and redemption, and having him die in a street brawl would be against the roots of the series.

In the ensuing years following the film's release, Stallone acknowledged that the injury Rocky suffers subsequently forcing him to retire, referenced in the film as a potentially lethal form of 'brain damage', was inaccurate.[4] Stallone stated that having discussed the story with many boxing medical professionals, the injury Rocky suffered was a milder form of brain damage, similar to that of a long term concussion that many boxers suffer from and by modern-day standards are still able to gain licenses to box and would not have prevented Rocky from gaining a license to box nor killed him.[5]

Tony Burton briefly reprises his role as Duke at the beginning of the film. However, during his scenes, Rocky refers to him as "Tony". In the credits, Burton is credited as playing "Tony", as opposed to "Duke" (possibly to avoid confusion with the George Washington Duke character). Rocky V is the third time in the series to do so, with the first being Rocky II as Apollo asked "What are you afraid of, Tony?", and the second time during Rocky IV after receiving a pep talk in the former Soviet Union, "Thanks, Tony.".[6] Rocky Balboa names Burton's character, "Duke Evers". Most fans take this to imply that his name is Tony "Duke" Evers.

Sage Stallone, Sylvester's real-life son, portrays his character's son in the film. However, in Rocky IV, he was portrayed as a nine-year-old child whereas Sage was 14 at the time of filming, making him a teenager in this film despite Rocky V taking place just days after the events of Rocky IV.

The soundtrack album is not the original motion picture score, but rather has music from and inspired by the film. This soundtrack features Joey B. Ellis, MC Hammer, 7A3, MC Tab, Rob Base, and Bill Conti. Most of the soundtrack album contains rap music, rather than the Bill Conti score. Also, two of the scores from Rocky IV were featured in this film's trailer, but were not present in the actual film or soundtrack. "Measure of a Man" was written by Alan Menken, Elton John, Tim Rice and performed by John.

Like Rocky IV, a full version of "Gonna Fly Now" with lyrics is not heard in the film. However an instrumental horn version is played during the early scene where Rocky gets off the airplane, and at the end of the movie after Rocky defeats Tommy, another instrumental version is heard. In addition, a solo piano version is heard during several scenes including where Balboa speaks with his son upon his return from Russia, and during the scenes where his property is being auctioned.

Anticipated to be one of the big hits of the 1990 holiday season, Rocky V finished second in its opening weekend to Home Alone and never recovered.[7] The film earned US$14 million on its opening weekend and $40 million in total US box-office sales, about one-third of its predecessor's take. Rocky V however made almost twice as much overseas and thereby a total of $119.9 million worldwide.

Rocky V has a 29% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 35 reviews, with the site's consensus states, "Rocky V's attempts to recapture the original's working-class grit are as transparently phony as each of the thuddingly obvious plot developments in a misguided installment that sent the franchise flailing into longterm limbo."[8] It also has a score of 55 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 16 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". The film departed from the standard Rocky formula on display in the previous four films, which made it extremely unpopular with the audiences that had been drawn to the previous sequels. Furthermore, when TV and cable networks played a film marathon of the Rocky series, they frequently left this installment off. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[9]

In 1999, Time placed the film on a list of the 100 worst ideas of the 20th century.[10]

Nonetheless, Stallone was still praised for his performance and the film received some positive feedback from some fans, with the Los Angeles Times regarding it as the best of the Rocky sequels.[11]

It was nominated for seven Golden Raspberry Awards in 1990 including Worst Picture, Worst Actor and Worst Screenplay for Stallone, Worst Actress for Shire, Worst Supporting Actor for Young, Worst Director for Avildsen and Worst Original Song for "The Measure of a Man".

As a result of, and in response to, Rocky V's poor box office performance (and the general dissatisfaction with the end of the franchise), sixteen years later, Stallone wrote, directed and starred in the film Rocky Balboa, the sixth chapter to the saga. The sixth film was an attempt to redeem the character for a final chance to come back as a hero again, and do the story justice by bringing it full circle; as for Rocky's ability to fight again, Stallone suggested that advances in medical science during the period between the films had shown that the injuries mentioned in Rocky V were less debilitating than once thought, and that he would receive a "clean bill of health" today. It succeeded by grossing over $70 million at the US box office as well, and $85 million abroad, and getting largely positive reviews from both fans and critics.[5]

In 2002 was released Rocky, based on the first five Rocky films.