Rocky's Back and Fighting for Jesus

It seems like a title guaranteed to make an audience groan: Rocky VI. It's star is old, the franchise is worn out and the idea of a 60-year-old boxer is ridiculous.

But Sylvester Stallone and the creators of the final addition to the Rocky stable have gone all out to market the movie, not to sports fans, but to Christians. Rocky, it turns out, is a metaphor for Jesus.

In one of the strangest twists in Hollywood history, Stallone is selling Rocky VI as a Christian parable of rebirth and redemption akin to Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, which stunned the film industry by showing profit in religious movie-making. A trailer, 'Fight for the Faith', is aimed at Christians while promotional packs explain how to use the film to teach Christian values, with tips for using Rocky in sermons.

During phone-ins with evangelical groups Stallone has spoken of being born again. 'The Church is the gym of the soul. [Rocky's] very, very forgiving. There's no bitterness in him. He always turns the other cheek and it's like his whole life was about service.'

And there's more: in the upcoming Rambo IV, the grizzled Vietnam veteran will rescue a group of Christian missionaries trapped in Burma.