When Peter Farrelly was deciding where to shoot “I Play Rocky,” the story of the making of the 1976 Sylvester Stallone classic, he knew that he couldn’t afford to film it in Philadelphia, where the original movie unfolded. Pennsylvania doesn’t offer much in the way of production incentives, and Farrelly was counting on generous tax credits. So he reconciled himself to filming the underdog drama in Atlanta or Sydney, which could fill in for the City of Brotherly Love. “I’ve shot a lot of movies in Georgia and Australia, and I loved the crews there,” Farrelly says. “But those places just don’t have the same feel as the Northeast.”
But when Farrelly and his production team did more research, they realized that they could get nearly as much bang for their buck in New Jersey — plus, the state offered locations that more closely approximated “Rocky”’s urban backdrop. So they built a boxing arena in a Jersey City studio for the film’s emotional climax, found a warehouse in Kenilworth that doubled for Rocky’s gym and apartment and even shot scenes of Stallone (played by Anthony Ippolito) running on what was supposed to be a Los Angeles beach in Asbury Park, the seaside community immortalized by Jersey’s most famous resident, Bruce Springsteen.
