Will Rocky Balboa land a knockout punch?

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Yo! I have a confession to make. I love Rocky, the fictional pugilist from South Philly.

I grew up watching the first four movies repeatedly and rooted for Rocky to beat Apollo Creed, Mr. T's Clubber Lang and Dolph Lundgren's Ivan Drago. When Apollo and Rocky became friends in "Rocky III", I applauded. And I shed a tear when Apollo died in "Rocky IV."

Sylvester Stallone steps into the ring one more time as the "Italian Stallion" in "Rocky Balboa." But do moviegoers want to see Sly fight again?

Gonna fly now? The first four "Rocky" films were champs but the last one hit the canvas. U.S. box office figures in $mill Movie (Year) Reported Inflation-adjusted Rocky (1976) $117.2 $415.5 Rocky II (1979) $85.2 $238.7 Rocky III (1982) $125.0 $261.3 Rocky IV (1985) $127.9 $238.1 Rocky V (1990) $40.9 $61.7 Source:Box Office Mojo, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis

Like Rocky Balboa, I am an Italian American. And like Rocky, I'm also left-handed. I even went to college in Philadelphia - which enabled me to emulate Rocky and do the whole running up the stairs of the Art Museum thing. (I refrained from drinking raw eggs, chasing chickens and pounding slabs of frozen meat, however).

So I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I am interested in seeing "Rocky Balboa," which hits theaters on December 22. Plus, Milo Ventimiglia, who plays Peter on my new favorite show "Heroes," is playing Rocky's son Rocky Jr!

But will "Rocky Balboa" be a hit for its studio, MGM? Are there lots of moviegoers who really want to see a 60-year old Sylvester Stallone step into the boxing ring one more time?

Jeff Pryor, executive vice president of corporate communications for MGM, is confident that "Rocky Balboa" will do well.

"We feel the movie is going to hang in there throughout the entire holiday period," Pryor said. "Rocky stirs up just so many good feelings in people and Sylvester Stallone has written a very strong script."

To be sure, Stallone has been pretty aggressive in promoting the film. He was the ubiquitous celebrity guest on Disney (Charts)-owned ESPN's Monday Night Football on December 6 when the Carolina Panthers played against the Philadelphia Eagles in Rocky's hometown. He also was featured in an ESPN special on Muhammad Ali earlier this month.

So MGM, which was bought by a consortium of investors including Sony (Charts) and cable company Comcast (Charts) in 2004, could have a hit with the new Rocky. After all, the first "Rocky" grossed more than $115 million while "Rocky III" and "Rocky IV" were even bigger hits. This is an iconic film character.

But the last Rocky flick was released 16 years ago. And "Rocky V" was a huge flop, generating just $41 million in box office sales. So even though I may be geeky enough to want to see this film, one has to wonder if that many people care enough to see what happens to him. Moviegoers clearly didn't in 1990.

Still, one entertainment expert thinks MGM will land a knockout punch at the box office with "Rocky Balboa."

"Some people might say there are no new ideas in Hollywood but I do think this is going to be a success," said Richard Dorfman, a managing director with Richard Alan Inc., a financial advisory and investment company focusing on the media industry. "Nostalgia sells well."

Dorfman argues that since it's been so long since the last "Rocky" film came out, people may be eager to see the new one. They won't feel burned out on the character. When the last Rocky was released in 1990, on the other hand, it was the fifth Rocky film in 14 years.

And "Rocky Balboa" is the latest example of a trend in Hollywood, resurrecting old characters after many years away from the silver screen.

Bruce Willis is set to star in a fourth "Die Hard" movie. "Live Free or Die Hard" is scheduled to be released next year by News Corp.'s (Charts) 20th Century Fox unit. But the last "Die Hard" movie came out in 1995.

Paramount, owned by Viacom (Charts), announced last month that it has green-lit a fourth "Beverly Hills Cop" movie with Eddie Murphy. The studio has not given a release date for "Beverly Hills Cop IV" but movie database IMDB.com lists a tentative date of 2009, 15 years after Eddie Murphy's last go-around as Axel Foley.

There even has been talk of Harrison Ford doing another Indiana Jones movie. IMDB.com is listing 2008 as a speculative release date for the film, with rumors of Sean Connery returning as Indy's Dad (he was in the last movie...which hit theaters in 1989) and Karen Allen coming back as Indy's love interest. She was in the original Indy movie, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" way back in 1981!

So what's next? "Ferris Bueller's New Day Off", in which a forty-something middle manager Ferris plays hooky from work for a day? They could get Ben Stein to play the head of human resources. Maybe "Fast Times at Ridgemont High: The 25 Year Reunion?" Wouldn't it be great to see Sean Penn play Jeff Spicoli again?

Or how about "E.T. 2: E.T.'s Revenge" in which our cute alien comes back to Earth and messes with Drew Barrymore for not beeeeeing gooooooood.

You can understand why Hollywood studios would want to keep pumping out sequels. Usually, they are big money makers.

"Sequels as a rule are more profitable than the average film (although not necessarily more profitable than the original movie)," wrote S. Abraham Ravid, a professor of finance and economics at Rutgers University who has studied the economics of the movie business, in an e-mail. "They also tend to be less risky. In other words, given a successful original movie, a sequel is a much better bet than an original screenplay."

But isn't the key to a successful sequel getting the movies out within a reasonably short period of time after the last film so it's still fresh in the public consciousness?

Dorfman disagrees. He said that since the Rocky movies air frequently on broadcast and cable TV, it's not as if people have forgotten Rocky.

"These movies have been on TV enough that there is familiarity with this series. So even people that are not old enough to have seen the originals will still know who Rocky is," he said.

Still, the box office performance of some recent sequels that came out too many years after their predecessor don't bode well for Rocky.

"The Legend of Zorro," a 2005 sequel to the surprise hit "Mask of Zorro" from 1998 tanked at the box office...even though both movies starred Antonio Banderas and Catheine Zeta-Jones. The first Zorro grossed $94 million. Last year's sequel pulled in half that amount.

"The Mask" was a big hit for Jim Carrey in 1994, going on to gross $120 million. Last year's "Son of the Mask" generated just $17 million. It obviously didn't help that neither Carrey nor Cameron Diaz were in the sequel. But even with them, it's hard to imagine that too many movie goers were eager for a "Mask" sequel eleven years after the original.

Finally, "Basic Instinct" made Sharon Stone a star in 1992. The erotic thriller pulled in $117 million. But this year's "Basic Instinct 2?" Stick an ice pick in it. It grossed a measly $5.9 million.

Nonetheless, Dorfman argues that Hollywood has other motives for trotting out old franchises for another go-around: DVD sales. Film libraries are increasingly becoming a more lucrative part of movie studios' financial success.

To that end, Dorfman argues that the main reason financier Carl Icahn invested in independent studio Lionsgate (Charts) earlier this year is because of its library.

And lo and behold, MGM released a special Rocky anthology (all five movies) on DVD earlier this month. And so far, the DVD set appears to be selling reasonably well. It's the 16th best seller on BarnesandNoble.com and 72nd on Amazon.com.

"The old movies have new life in the marketplace as a result of piggybacking off the new one. Who would be rushing to buy the DVD if there was no movie now?" Dorfman said.

MGM's Pryor conceded that was a big motivation for the studio. "Another big reason we green-lit the movie is that MGM owns the other five. So why not do the sixth? It allows us to freshen up the library and give us another opportunity to sell the other videos," he said.

So even if the new "Rocky Balboa" isn't a huge hit in theaters, MGM could still score a financial TKO with some healthy DVD revenue.

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