From Variety, Michael B. Jordan is returning to the director’s chair. Hollywood producer Irwin Winkler, of famed “Rocky” and successful “Creed” franchises, recently revealed the fourth film is in development with Jordan poised to direct in this latest spinoff of the iconic “Rocky” film series.
Jordan’s first shot at directing was for “Creed III,” where he returned in his role leading role as heavyweight champion, Adonis Creed. Jonathan Majors starred opposite Jordan as Damian Anderson, the antagonist who faced off against Creed in the ring. “Creed III,” hit theaters in March, and landed with a knockout punch, setting an opening weekend record for the franchise with a strong debut of $58 million. Notably, the first three movies of the franchise combined for over $663 million worldwide.
In the first two “Creed” films, Sylvester Stallone starred alongside Jordan as Rocky Balboa, mentoring Adonis, the son of his former rival turned best friend Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). “Creed 3” was the first installment in the series sans Stallone.
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Variety reported in March Jordan and Amazon were in talks for both a film and television series expanding the “Creed” universe. Although details were not known, sources indicated that Prime Video may be a home to the franchise after Amazon’s acquisition of MGM.
Deadline first reported the news of “Creed 4,” with a clip on X (formerly Twitter) of Winkler announcing the film.
Winkler said “We’re planning to do ‘Creed 4’ right now — it’s in the works — and we think we have a really good story, a really good plot because of the strike, like everybody else,”
“Probably a year from now we’re going for pre-production.”
At Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles event, Winkler further mentioned the undeniable success of the “Rocky” franchise, which opened the door wide open for the “Creed” spinoff.
“Michael and the creative team had the beautiful vision from the start to create a wholly new and different experience for this movie,” Winkler said. “It had to be firmly cemented in what we all [know] the ‘Creed’ and ‘Rocky’ movies for… it had to have great action, boxing, but we also really examined what kind of movie we were making.”
He went on to add “And a lot of that, those early days with Michael were spent crafting how we were looking at the Damian character, which is why I think everyone responded to the depth, not only on the page, but also on the screen. You spend half the movie having deep sympathy for him and understanding his vulnerability.”
