India, Sept. 30 -- Fifty years after Sylvester Stallone turned a modest story about an unknown boxer into one of Hollywood's most enduring success stories, he still sees something of himself in Rocky Balboa.

But there is one thing he no longer calls himself: an underdog.

"It would be so disingenuous to say you're an underdog, as he said from his penthouse," Stallone said in a recent interview from a high floor of a luxury Manhattan hotel. "Yeah. Come on. I am a lucky dog."

Stallone, who turned 80 in July, has spent five decades building blockbuster franchises including "Rocky", "Rambo" and "The Expendables", generating billions of dollars along the way. He continues to work, starring as mobster Dwight "The General" Manfredi in Paramoun...