How Will Sly End ROCKY BALBOA??

If the defining question of the topic were altered slightly, to say, "How will Rocky Balboa end?" the answer might finally be, "largely ignored."

Its box-office numbers weren't disastrous; as of January 18 it had pulled in $66 million domestic, and will probably tack on another 5 to 10 million before it ends its run, about exactly what we predicted. What has been curious has been its complete lack of appeal in foreign markets. It has only pulled about $10 million overseas. Compare that to You, Me and Dupree, a very different movie, but with comparable domestic numbers. It ended its domestic run in the mid-70 million range. Its foreign take was around $55 million. Evidently Rocky's appeal is strictly an American phenomenon, and not, these days, a strong one even here.

I believe it was Abraham Lincoln who once quipped, "God must love common people, because he made an awful lot of them." Frankly, I've known a lot of common folk, or regular guys if you prefer, and almost all of them were a million times more admirable than, in my view, the utterly detestable Rocky Balboa. Come now, folks. Was I really the only guy watching those movies that pulled for ALL of his opponents to beat the stuffing out of him?