Irwin Winkler, 84-year-old producer of every single Rocky film in the franchise, including Creed, says preliminary work on the sequel to Creed will begin in March, 2016.
“Next couple of weeks, we’ll start,” Winkler told the Hollywood Reporter on February 29, the morning after Sylvester Stallone’s disappointing loss at the 88th annual Academy Awards.
“But basically it’s about Creed [not Rocky]. We think that there is really a story to examine the life of Adonis Creed, and we’re going ahead with it.”
Executives at MGM also support the notion of a Creed 2 production, however concerns have been raised that creator and director Ryan Coogler will be tied up with various other projects for the forseeable future and would not be available to work on a Creed sequel any time soon.
Sylvester Stallone recently stated that he’d only be willing to work on a sequel if Coogler were involved.
ROCKY AND APOLLO IN FLASHBACK?
Various plot possibilities have been mentioned in the press, including a past-and-present storyline reminiscent of The Godfather II, and a flashback-style inclusion which could potentially feature Rocky and Apollo.
The cast, however, remains up in the air. There are no official notices about whether any of the main players – Michael B. Jordan, Tessa Thompson and Sylvester Stallone – would return for a sequel.
Last month at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Stallone changed his tune about returning as Rocky Balboa in an eighth on-screen appearance in Creed 2.
“I really have mixed feelings about this, seriously,” Sly said. “I feel like Rocky, at the end of this movie on the steps, with the help of a young man, and he looks out and says, ‘From here, you can see your whole life’ – it sort of summarizes the whole thing. I don’t know how much further you can push Rocky.”
Carl Weathers, on the other hand, when asked about reprising his role as Apollo Creed (despite the fact that his character was killed off in Rocky IV), recently said: “If I could get a role as cool at this point as Rocky’s was, then, yeah, in a heartbeat I’d be back in.”
