‘Rocky IV’s Ivan Drago Might Get His Own Spinoff Movie
35 years after it was released in theaters, one of the hottest movies in Hollywood is ... Rocky IV? Just a few weeks after the release of a brand new director’s cut of the film in theaters and on home video, one of Rocky IV’s stars now says there is talk of spinning off one of the franchise’s key characters into his own film. I know the Rocky movies are all about going the distance, but this is really extreme.
The character in question would be Ivan Drago, the brutal Russian boxer who is Rocky Balboa’s opponent in the film. Drago became the breakthrough role for Dolph Lundgren, who had previously been a chemical engineer and a model before getting into the acting business. Even before the Rocky IV director’s cut, Lundgren reprised his role of Drago in 2018’s Creed II, where Drago’s son fought Michael B. Jordan’s Adonis Creed to settle an old family score.
Lundgren had a fairly significant supporting role in the film, but he told The Hollywood Reporter��that the part was originally intended to be even bigger, and was supposed to include a fight between the older Drago and his old nemesis Rocky, played by Sylvester Stallone. That scene was cut, but Lundgren now says it could be revived as part of a Drago spinoff film. He told THR...
I thought it was a good moment. It was also a fan moment. It was a quick little fight, and I thought it worked ... But the director [Steven Caple Jr.] and MGM felt that it was extraneous and that it didn’t add anything. By the way, I think there’s some talk about doing a whole spinoff on Drago with MGM. So you may get more of that.
Frankly, the only Drago spinoff I need is an adaptation of the legendary novel Drago: On Mountains We Stand, an unauthorized Rocky IV sequel by mysterious novelist Todd Noy. The history of the book and the search for Noy was the subject of a very entertaining podcast from a few years ago called Finding Drago that you should definitely listen to.
I’m not sure how likely the chances of a Drago spinoff in 2021 are, but you can for sure watch the director’s cut of Rocky IV, Rocky vs. Drago. It’s definitely an interesting counterpoint to the theatrical version. It’s now available on digital.