“I don’t believe Sylvester Stallone carries around a wallet,” says Braden Aftergood, the executive in charge of scripted development at the movie star’s content company Balboa Prods. It’s not that …
, the executive in charge of scripted development at the movie star’s content company Balboa Prods.
Many of the projects they’re pitching clear similar hurdles. Since forming the company in May 2018, Aftergood and Stallone have been silently building and selling a diverse slate of content to partners like MGM and NBCUniversal. They view their company as an extension of the brand Stallone has established during his four decades in the business. Balboa — the last name of the title character in Stallone’s “Rocky” movies — tells gritty stories about underdogs overcoming adversity.
On the TV side, the pair have set a reboot of Stallone’s 1981 thriller “Nighthawks” at USA, as well as the 1970s beat cop drama “The Tenderloin,” which was sold to History. “His brand is as meaningful today as it was in 1976, and I can’t think of anybody else operating on that level,” Aftergood says. “He saw this company as an opportunity beyond acting, to apply this brand to film and TV as a producer. Stallone has made a career out of populist movies designed to be seen by as many people as possible that are also quality and have something to say.”
“There is a punk rock spirit that Sly has, in that he’s willing to buck convention and do something less traditional because it’s more artistically interesting,” says Jonathan Glickman, president of MGM’s motion picture group. He points specifically to Stallone’s handing the keys to the “Rocky” franchise to Ryan Coogler, who made the spinoff “Creed” for MGM in 2015, with only the acclaimed indie “Fruitvale Station” under his belt.
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