Michael B Jordan will return as star and director of Creed IV to explore the next chapter of Adonis Creed’s punchy life and career.
It looks like we’ll be getting another Creed film, according to reports that surfaced over the weekend stating that a fourth movie in the Rocky spin-off series is officially in the works. Not much else is known about the project, apart from that the franchise’s star, Michael B Jordan will not only reprise the character of second-generation boxing champ, Adonis Creed, but also he will once again direct the film too.
Jordan made his feature-length directorial debut with this year’s Creed III, adding another fine entry into what has so far been a rock-solid franchise, both in terms of quality and commercial success. The film ended its global box office run after grossing $275.3 million worldwide from a $75 million budget.
While 2018’s Creed II (directed by Stephen Caple Jr) was a fun watch, especially for longtime Rocky fans, it arguably leaned a little too hard into the series’ mythology. Creed III, on the other hand, really focused on the character of Adonis and featured the character of Damian Anderson, one of the better villains we’ve seen in the dozen or so Rocky/Creed films that have been made to date.
Read more: Creed III review | The franchise that keeps on swinging
Anderson was, however, portrayed by Jonathan Majors, who almost certainly won’t be returning for the next film given his ongoing (and very public) legal troubles. It’s almost certain that series stalwart Sylvester Stallone won’t be coming back either given how acrimonious his feud with the series’ producer Irvin Winkler has become.
It was Winkler who revealed plans for the new film (via Deadline), stating: “We’re planning to do Creed IV right now, and we have a really good story, really good plot”. While the strikes are said to have delayed things, the project is building up a head of steam and is looking to go into pre-production in a year’s time. There’s also no word as to whether Ryan Coogler is involved, but hopefully he will be in some capacity. Coogler directed the first film but continued his involvement as writer and executive producer through the next two films.
Finally, we have no idea what the story will entail, either, but in real life, the huge rise in profile over the last few years in ‘crossover’ fights between boxers and mixed martial artists is the biggest story to come out of boxing, for better or for worse. Given that we recently saw the boxing world heavyweight champ, Tyson Fury ‘lose’ (although not on the judges’ scorecards, crucially) to Francis Ngannou, an MMA fighter making his professional boxing debut, we wonder if such a story might make for an exciting story and a different kind of villain in a Creed film? No, that’s not a call to bring back Rocky III's Thunderlips before that thought crosses your mind.
We’ll bring you more updates on Creed IV in due course – but it will likely be a while.
