At the time of writing the script of Rocky, the 30-year old Sylvester Stallone had $106 in his bank account, no car and a dog that he was attempting to sell because it cost too much to feed him. After multiple revisions, two producers named Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff made Mr. Stallone an offer of $350,000 for the rights to the story. Stallone refused to sell unless he could play the lead role. The three reached an agreement in which Stallone would have to continue to work as a writer without a fee and his actor pay would be at scale.