1976's No. 1 Hit Film Was Almost a Made-for-TV Movie
The biggest movie of 1976 was almost a TV movie instead-and the deal was handled by a Happy Days star.
During an appearance on Sirius XM's Sway in the Morning, Happy Days star Henry Winkler once revealed he negotiated a deal with ABC to make Sylvester Stallone'sRocky script into a network TV movie in the mid-1970s.
At the time, Stallone's only movie credit was in the 1974 movie The Lords of Flatbush, which also starred Winkler. But Winkler was one of the biggest stars on TV, playing Happy Days icon Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli, when Stallone showed him the script for a feature film.
"He came to Hollywood, his car broke down on Sunset Boulevard, he called me up," Winkler recalled of his early friendship with Stallone. "I went to get he and his wife Sasha and their bull mastiff dog, left the car with all their belongings, took him to the apartment he rented. He gave me a script because I was doing the Fonz by then, and I took it to ABC and sold it as a television movie."
While network executives were impressed with the script, they wanted someone other than Stallone to rewrite it. But Stallone didn't want his story about an Italian-American underdog boxer changed, so he begged Winkler to cancel the deal.
"I said, ‘ABC, I'm giving you back the money, I need that script back,' and I gave it back to him, and it became Rocky," Winkler said on the podcast. "And that is the honest truth."
Stallone insisted on starring in ‘Rocky'
Stallone wrote the script for Rocky in three days, according to Variety. When shopping his screenplay around, he insisted that he play the lead role of Rocky Balboa.
In an interview on CBS Mornings, Stallone revealed that multiple studios wanted the script, but didn't want him. He was offered up to $360,000 for his screenplay, which would have made him the equivalent of a millionaire today. "But I couldn't do it," he told CBS' Gayle King. "I more than needed the money. [My wife's] pregnant, we're broke. We have 106 dollars. I thought, ‘There's something holding me back."
United Artists ultimately agreed to cast Stallone in Rocky, and Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff produced the film.
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Starring Stallone, Burgess Meredith, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, andTalia Shire, Rocky became the top movie of 1976. The film earned more than $225 million globally, per The Numbers.
Rocky also won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Editing, and Best Director, and spawned a multi-film franchise.
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This story was originally published April 14, 2026 at 6:02 AM.