 | |
| Company type | Privately held company |
|---|---|
| Industry |
|
| Founded | 2018 |
| Founder | Sylvester Stallone |
| Headquarters | United States |
Key people | Sylvester Stallone (Co-Executive Chairmen) Braden Aftergood (Vice chairman) |
Balboa Productions is an American film and television production company founded and led by Sylvester Stallone. The studio is named after his character Rocky Balboa from the Rocky franchise.
On May 30, 2018, Sylvester Stallone formed Balboa Productions with a partnership with Starlight Culture Entertainment. Braden Aftergood was named as the executive of scripted development. [1] That same month, Balboa Productions announced one of their first projects with the superhero thriller Samaritan . Stallone starred in the titular role, with the movie being released on August 26, 2022, via streaming, through Amazon Prime Video after Amazon's purchase of MGM. [2] [3] Balboa Productions was one of the studios involved with the development of Rambo: Last Blood , released on September 20, 2019. [4] In October 2019, Balboa Productions partnered with DAZN to develop sports featured documentaries. Their first collaboration was realized with, One Night: Joshua vs. Ruiz. [5] Balboa Productions entered a first-look deal with Amazon Studios in April 2023. [6]
In May 2018, Balboa Productions announced to be developing a number of projects, including: a Jack Johnson biopic, [1] film adaptations of James Byron Huggins novel Hunter , and Michael McGowan and Ralph Pezzullo's memoir Ghost. The studio will also develop a Special Ops film written by retired Army Ranger Max Adams, alongside television series adaptations of Chuck Dixon's Levon's Trade, and Charles Sailor's Second Son. [2] In May 2019, it was announced that Balboa Productions will co-produce the American remake of The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil with B&C Group and CA Entertainment. Don Lee will produce the project, in addition to reprising his starring role in the remake. [7]
In July 2019, it was announced that the studio will produce another slate of projects including: Corin Hardy's monster movie titled Arcane, The Bellhop starring Iko Uwais, and a television series adaptation of Stallone's cult classic Nighthawks . The series will be released via streaming exclusively on Peacock. Balboa Productions will also be involved in the upcoming History Channel Original series, The Tenderloin with Stallone set to direct multiple episodes. As a production studio, they stated that they would like to be "the Blumhouse of action films", referring to Blumhouse Productions' success in the horror movie genre. [8] [9] [10]
In June 2019, it was announced that Balboa Productions will produce a new television series titled, The International. Dolph Lundgren will star in the main role, with Ken Sanzel serving as showrunner, and Stallone scheduled to direct the pilot episode. The series will be released on the CBS network. [11] [12] In February 2020, it was announced that the studio will produce Rowan Athale's film Little America. Stallone was slated to appear in the starring role, while additional funding for the project is being acquired through AGC International. [13] [14] The studio is also set to produce Cassandra Brooksbank's directiorial debut My Masterpiece, starring Maria Bakalova. [15] In May 2023, a legacy sequel to Cliffhanger was announced to be in the works with Stallone returning to star in addition to serving as a producer. [16]
| Year | Title | Director | Budget | Gross | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Rambo: Last Blood | Adrian Grünberg | $50,000,000 | $91,490,353 | Distributed by Lionsgate Films |
| One Night: Joshua vs. Ruiz | Deirdre Fenton and Jamie Horowitz | — | — | Documentary film | |
| 2022 | Samaritan | Julius Avery | $100,000,000 | — | Distributed by United Artists Releasing and Amazon Studios |
| 2023 | Creed III | Michael B. Jordan | $75,000,000 | $273,796,108 | Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Sly | Thom Zimny | — | — | Distributed by Netflix | |
| 2025 | Levon's Trade | David Ayer | — | — | Distributed by Amazon MGM Studios |
| TBA | Untitled Cliffhanger sequel [16] | Ric Roman Waugh | — | — | |
| Untitled Jack Johnson biopic [1] | — | — | — | Distributed by Amazon MGM Studios | |
| Hunter [2] | — | — | — | ||
| Ghost [2] | — | — | — | ||
| Untitled Special Ops film [2] | — | — | — | ||
| The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil [7] | — | — | — | Distribution by Paramount Pictures [17] | |
| Arcane [8] | Corin Hardy | — | — | ||
| The Bellhop film [8] | Jonathan Eusebio | — | — | ||
| Little America [13] | Roman Athale | — | — | Co-produced by Platinum Dunes | |
| My Masterpiece [15] | Cassandra Brooksbank | — | — |
| Year | Title | Creator(s) | Network | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022–present | Tulsa King | Taylor Sheridan | Paramount+ | |
| TBA | The International [11] | Ken Sanzel | CBS [12] | |
| Nighthawks [8] | — | Peacock [9] | ||
| The Tenderloin [10] | Stephen Kay | History | ||
| Second Son [2] | Rob Williams | — |
Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone is an American actor and filmmaker. He has received numerous accolades, including a Golden Globe Award and a Critics' Choice Award, as well as nominations for three Academy Awards and two BAFTA Awards. Stallone is one of only two actors in history to have starred in a box-office No. 1 film across six consecutive decades.
Rocky IV is a 1985 American sports drama film written, directed by, and starring Sylvester Stallone. The film is the sequel to Rocky III (1982) and the fourth installment in the Rocky film series. It also stars Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, Brigitte Nielsen, and Dolph Lundgren. In the film, Rocky Balboa (Stallone) confronts Ivan Drago (Lundgren), a Soviet boxer responsible for a personal tragedy in Balboa's life.
Hans "Dolph" Lundgren is a Swedish-American actor, filmmaker and martial artist. Born in Spånga, Sweden, Lundgren became interested in martial arts at a young age. This would lead him to hold the rank of 4th dan black belt in Kyokushin karate and become European champion in 1980 and 1981. In 1982, while studying to get a master's degree, he became the boyfriend of singer Grace Jones. With her, he moved to New York City and started to take acting classes. In 1985, Lundgren had a breakthrough role playing the lead villain as an imposing Soviet boxer named Ivan Drago in Sylvester Stallone's Rocky IV.
Nighthawks is a 1981 American neo-noir action crime thriller film directed by Bruce Malmuth and starring Sylvester Stallone with Billy Dee Williams, Lindsay Wagner, Persis Khambatta, Nigel Davenport, and Rutger Hauer. Its score was composed by Keith Emerson. The film was noted for production problems.
David Ayer is an American filmmaker known for making crime films that are set in Los Angeles and deal with gangs and police corruption. His screenplays include Training Day (2001), The Fast and the Furious (2001), and S.W.A.T. (2003). He has also directed Harsh Times (2005), Street Kings (2008), End of Watch (2012), Sabotage (2014), and The Beekeeper (2024). In 2016, he directed the superhero movie Suicide Squad from the DC Extended Universe, and then the urban fantasy film Bright (2017) for Netflix. He has twice collaborated with actor Shia LaBeouf: first with the World War II drama Fury (2014), then the crime thriller The Tax Collector (2020). He has also collaborated with his friend Cle Shaheed Sloan who has appeared in four of his films.
Jaume Collet-Serra is a Spanish-American film director and producer. He directed the horror films House of Wax (2005), Orphan (2009), and The Shallows (2016), as well as the Liam Neeson-led thriller films Unknown (2011), Non-Stop (2014), Run All Night (2015), and The Commuter (2018). Collet-Serra also directed the Dwayne Johnson-led films, Jungle Cruise (2021), based on the eponymous theme park attraction from Disney, and Black Adam (2022), based on the comic book character of the same name from DC.
Rocky is an American sports drama multimedia franchise created by Sylvester Stallone, based on the life of Chuck Wepner, which began with the eponymous 1976 film and has since become a cultural phenomenon, centered on the boxing careers of Rocky Balboa and his protégé Adonis Creed.
Uwais Qorny, known professionally as Iko Uwais, is an Indonesian actor, stuntman, fight choreographer, and martial artist. He is best known for acting in the action films Merantau (2009), The Raid (2011), The Raid 2 (2014), Headshot (2016), Mile 22 (2018), The Night Comes for Us (2018), Stuber (2019) and the Netflix series Wu Assassins (2019–22).
The Expendables is an American ensemble action thriller franchise conceived by David Callaham, spanning a film series, written by Sylvester Stallone and additional media. The films star an ensemble cast, notably Stallone and Jason Statham, and are produced by Avi Lerner and Kevin King-Templeton. The film series, an acknowledgement of former blockbuster action films made in the 1980s and 1990s, also pays homage to action stars of former decades, and the more recent stars in action. The series consists of the films The Expendables (2010), The Expendables 2 (2012), The Expendables 3 (2014), Expend4bles (2023), and an ongoing comic book series, The Expendables Go to Hell (2021). Though criticism with regard to plot and dialogue between characters has been expressed, critics praised the use of comic relief in between action.
Creed is a 2015 American sports drama film directed by Ryan Coogler, who co-wrote the screenplay with Aaron Covington. It is the first spin-off of and is the seventh installment in the Rocky film series. It stars Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad, Tony Bellew, and Graham McTavish. In the film, amateur boxer Adonis Creed (Jordan) is trained and mentored by Rocky Balboa (Stallone), the former rival turned friend of Adonis' father, Apollo Creed.
Creed II is a 2018 American sports drama film directed by Steven Caple Jr. from a screenplay by Juel Taylor and Sylvester Stallone. It is the sequel to Creed (2015) and the eighth installment in the Rocky film series. It stars Michael B. Jordan, Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Wood Harris, Phylicia Rashad, Florian Munteanu, and Dolph Lundgren. In the film, under the continued tutelage of Rocky Balboa (Stallone), Adonis Creed (Jordan) faces off against Viktor Drago (Munteanu), the son of Ivan Drago (Lundgren), who became responsible for the death of Adonis' father Apollo Creed in Rocky IV (1985).
Julius Avery is an Australian filmmaker. His credits include Son of a Gun (2014), Overlord (2018) and The Pope's Exorcist (2023).
The Picture Company is an American entertainment company founded in 2014, by Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman, in Glendale, California. It specializes in film, starting off moderately in 2018 with Jaume Collet-Serra's The Commuter and Albert Hughes' Alpha.
Samaritan is a 2022 American superhero film directed by Julius Avery and written by Bragi F. Schut. Described as a gritty and dark take on superhero movies, the story was previously adapted into the Mythos Comics graphic novels by Schut, Marc Olivent, and Renzo Podesta. It is a co-production of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Balboa Productions. The film stars Sylvester Stallone in the main role, Javon "Wanna" Walton, Pilou Asbæk, Dascha Polanco, and Moisés Arias. The story follows a kid who suspects that his neighbor is secretly a superhero who was believed to have died many years prior.
Expend4bles is a 2023 American action film that is the fourth installment in The Expendables franchise, following The Expendables 3 (2014). The film stars an ensemble cast including Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren and Randy Couture reprising their roles from previous films, with Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Megan Fox, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais and Andy García joining the cast. It is directed by Scott Waugh from a screenplay by Kurt Wimmer, Tad Daggerhart, and Max Adams, based on a story by Spenser Cohen, Wimmer, and Daggerhart.
Spenser Cohen is an American film screenwriter, executive producer, and director best known for his work on Extinction (2018) and Moonfall (2022).
Levon's Trade is an upcoming American action-thriller film directed by David Ayer from a screenplay by Sylvester Stallone. It is based on the novel of the same name by Chuck Dixon. The film stars Jason Statham, David Harbour, Michael Peña, Jason Flemyng, Arianna Rivas, Noemi Gonzalez, Emmett J. Scanlan, Eve Mauro, Maximilian Osinski, Kristina Poli, Andrej Kaminsky and Isla Gie.
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