The Creed movies are always driven by stories drawn from Adonis "Donnie" Creed's (Michael B. Jordan) past, though they've often also had ties — unsurprisingly – to Sylvester Stallone's Rocky Balboa. But with Sly skipping Creed III (unless there's a cameo yet to be revealed), the new movie is all about Donnie's past coming back to haunt him, as he'll face off against Jonathan Majors' Damien Anderson. Check out the first trailer…
In a story set a few years after Creed II, Adonis has been thriving in both his career and family life. But when childhood friend and former boxing prodigy, Damian, resurfaces after serving a long sentence in prison, he is eager to prove that he deserves his shot in the ring.
The face off between former friends is more than just a fight. To settle the score, Adonis must put his future on the line to battle Damian – a fighter who has nothing to lose…
As for personal stakes, this also marks Jordan's directorial debut – and from the looks of the trailer, at least, he's pulled no punches.
“I finally got to this place in my career where I wanted to tell a story and not just be in front of the camera, not just execute somebody else’s vision," Jordan said at a virtual press conference to launch the trailer. "And having a character that I've played twice before, it’s been seven, eight years living with this guy. So to be able to tell a story of where I believe Adonis is at, and also at 35 years old, I had a lot to say as a young man, as a young Black man, just my life experiences and how I could actually share that, share a piece of myself with the world – through these characters and through this story. You just gotta jump in the deep end and go for it, you know?”
It was the right time, but that didn’t stop it being a giant endeavour for the first-time film director. “It was the most challenging thing that I’ve ever done so far by, by far, just daily pushing myself to new limits learning how to communicate and really get what’s in your head and have other people pick up on that passion, on that enthusiasm and want to execute your vision to the best of their ability.”
Tessa Thompson returns Bianca Taylor, with Phylicia Rashad as Mary Anne Creed, Wood Harris as Tony "Little Duke" Evers, and Florian Munteanu also back as Creed II's Drago Jr. Keenan Coogler and Zach Baylin wrote the screenplay, with story input from original Creed director and still exec-producer Ryan Coogler, and Creed III is due out on 3 March.
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