Film director Darren Aronofsky revealed that Mickey Rourke wasn’t the first choice to play Randy “The Ram” Robinson in the film “The Wrestler”. First choice in line was Nicolas Cage, but Nic Cage turned the movie down due to creative differences, sounded like Nic Cage didn’t like the script and moved on. Second choice was Sylvester Stallone. Aronofsky explains how he was trying to get Sly back in the ring again but Sly has been too busy working on “Rocky Balboa” at the time. Then Mickey Rourke accepted the role.

From the article below:

http://www.azcentral.com/ent/movies/articles/2008/11/28/20081128wrestler-rourke.html

Rourke, for several reasons, wasn’t the first choice for the role – and, for those same reasons, he wasn’t the easiest person to stay first choice. Aronofsky now says that the story that Nicolas Cage was the original choice and bowed out in deference to Rourke “is a bit overblown,” but he concedes that Sylvester Stallone was on his short list early on. “I was thinking it’d be interesting to see him go back to the ring in some way because he’s so good in the ring. Then he did ‘Rocky Balboa,’ the latest ‘Rocky,’ and it kinda ruled it out for me because it was about an older guy going back to the ring. There were enough connections there that I didn’t want to go near it.”

I’m dying to see “The Wrestler” but I don’t know if the Wilton Mall will ever get it though. The film is not a nationwide release, only in selected theaters so I’ll just wait for DVD on this one. The movie does look amazing though.

I don’t know if Sly would go for a wrestler type of movie anyways, he’s more of a boxing movie star.

Edit to add: I just remembered that Sly Stallone wrote, directed and starred in “Paradise Alley” one of Stallone’s older movies and that movie is wrestling related. So Sly is definitely a fan of wrestling too so never know, he could have done “The Wrestler”.

Kev