Michael B. Jordan will wait a little longer before returning to the ring in “Creed III.”
The third “Creed” movie, which is the ninth installment in the “Rocky” film franchise, has postponed its release date from Nov. 23, 2022, to its new slot on March 3, 2023.
In his third go-around as Adonis Creed, the son of Rocky Balboa’s fiercest competitor Apollo Creed, Jordan is also directing the film in his feature filmmaking debut. Tessa Thompson is reprising her role as Donnie’s girlfriend Bianca and Phylicia Rashad is returning as his stepmother Mary Anne. Jonathan Majors is joining the cast as Anderson Dame, an apparent antagonist to Adonis.
“Creed III” will be the first “Rocky” film without Sylvester Stallone — who created the character and played the ultimate underdog Rocky Balboa in eight movies — at least making an appearance. The “Creed” sequel wraps up with Adonis making peace with his late father’s burdensome legacy, and Rocky traveling to Vancouver to bury the hatchet with his estranged son and meet his grandson. Plot details for the third chapter in the spinoff series have been kept under wraps.
The film, which was shot using Imax cameras, began production in early 2022 and wrapped in the middle of the year.
Keenan Coogler (“Space Jam: A New Legacy”) and Zach Baylin (“King Richard”) wrote the screenplay based on a story by Ryan Coogler, who directed the original “Creed.” The first spinoff story — about the son of world champion boxer Apollo Creed — opened in theaters in 2015 and successfully revived the “Rocky” franchise by grossing $109 million domestically and $173 million globally. The sequel, which hit theaters around Thanksgiving 2018, improved upon its predecessor by generating $115 million in North America and $214 million worldwide.
When Jordan announced in 2021 that he would step behind the camera for the first time, he called directing an “aspiration, but the timing had to be right.”
“This franchise and, in particular, the themes of ‘Creed III’ are deeply personal to me,” he said. “I look forward to sharing the next chapter of Adonis Creed’s story with the awesome responsibility of being its director and namesake.”
