Creed III

Pete Wright
I’m Pete Wright.

Andy Nelson
And I’m Andy Nelson.

Pete Wright
Welcome to The Next Reel when the movie ends.

Andy Nelson
Our conversation begins.

Pete Wright
Creed III is over. You out there boxing. I need you to start fighting. Right? I mean, really? That’s the movie. That’s the whole thing.

Andy Nelson
Yes, that is the whole thing.

Pete Wright
Here we are, we’re talking about Creed III. Creed III, this is the movie after Creed II. It is the movie that Ryan Coogler made his brother write and then didn’t direct, made Michael B. Jordan direct. And it is a movie that we haven’t talked about. We are adding it to our Rocky series. We have talked about the rest. And you should go listen to those if you haven’t yet. Linked in the show notes. Andy, what do you think?

Andy Nelson
Yeah, an opportunity to go back and add something to one of our past series just to kind of finish it off. I’m sure at some point we’ll be adding Creed IV to the lineup, the way things are talking. But I had not seen this one. This came out in theaters. I mean, for anyone who’s tuned into the show and listened to our conversations about the Rocky franchise, they’ll know that I never had watched any of the Rocky films until we started the series. And I know, I know.

Pete Wright
Which is unbelievable.

Andy Nelson
I’ve never been that interested in boxing, but I do enjoy sports movies. And so I take it back. I had seen the first Rocky just because of the Best Picture position of it. But anyway, it took me a while to finally get it to a point where I watched all these specifically because we did it on the show. And I really genuinely enjoyed the franchise. And I think that is a lot of fun. And I really enjoyed the shift that happened with the Creed films. And perhaps I enjoy Creed II more than most people. Like that might be my favorite of the entire thing. Like I really enjoyed that story and the return of everything that we got in Rocky IV and kind of that Rocky and Drago relationship now with Adonis and Drago’s son. And so, I don’t know, Creed III came out and I felt like I should see it because we did the series, but then I didn’t. And then, and I’ll be honest, all of the stuff came out about Jonathan Majors and made me much less interested in bothering, which is a shame because I was really enjoying Jonathan Majors’ career trajectory he had been on and it didn’t make me not want to see it but it made me just not actively pursue it when it came out in theaters. And then it just kind of slipped from my mind. And so I finally came back to it. And now that I’ve seen it, I mean I do wish I saw in theaters because it’s a big screen spectacle, all the great boxing and everything. I’m sure it would have been beautiful up there. Especially since they shot a number of the scenes in IMAX. But I will say it’s a step down in the franchise for me.

Pete Wright
Okay, this’ll be interesting. I want to know why. The way I’ve been characterizing this in my head is that and I’ll spoil it, this is a four star movie that has occasional bursts of five star work in it that just feel really different, like objectively different than anything that the franchise has done before. And I love that. I love that because it feels like Michael B. Jordan stepping in as director is we’re getting someone who has been sort of waiting in line to speak, right? That this feels like a him thing. And I think that that maybe that comes out, you know, when you see more of his performance in Sinners and you start to see more of how this guy thinks about grief and loss and friendship and companionship and how to tune that for a sports movie for a boxing movie, a movie that is ostensibly just about the conflict, and to make it not about the actual boxing match, but to do something really different and really special and we’ll talk about round eleven. That all leads to this kind locker room conversation at the end that I feel like was really different than what I expected from this movie, from this franchise, and I really enjoyed it. Now again, is it the best of the franchise? I don’t know if that’s true. For me Creed is pretty strong, but Creed II, Andy, we need an intervention.

Andy Nelson
I thought you liked that one.

Pete Wright
I did.

Andy Nelson
I guess I can’t remember our conversation, but I love it.

Pete Wright
No, no, no. I did very much. But here’s an interesting point, right? Because watching Creed III reminded me just how sort of fetishistic Creed II is about the past, right? Introducing and some of that is because of the Sylvester Stallone problem. And I say that as a problem only in hindsight. This is a different movie because Stallone isn’t in it, right? This gets to be sort of Creed I, the Creed that maybe we needed to see having Stallone gone. And no disrespect to Stallone, but this is a different story. This is a different boxing movie. This is a movie that plays the tropes in a new and interesting way for me. And I think Creed II’s efforts to jam the Russian stuff into it as the primary story. Now, this morning talking to you about it, it reads as exhausting to me. Like I just don’t have that sense memory of just joy of Creed II that I do of Creed for sure.

Andy Nelson
I can see that, and you know, and I know that there are people who probably think I’m crazy for liking Creed II as much as I do. But, you know, it’s interesting because I’m coming at the franchise as somebody who again, I had never really gotten into the franchise, I hadn’t seen the films. And so in the nature of franchises, what is a franchise if it’s not a tool to keep bringing things back from the past, right? I mean that’s kind of the nature of franchises.

Pete Wright
All right, Andy, I’m gonna take this, I’m gonna take this one for you. I’m gonna let you off the hook right now, in public. Just to remember, everybody listening, Pete likes 2010 more than 2001. Okay? All right, you can have your Creed II.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. And, you know, to your point about this film, it’s also pulling from what we’re getting in Rocky III. Like I feel like there’s a tie-in to that film that they couldn’t let go of.

Pete Wright
But it’s a spiritual tie-in, not a literal tie-in.

Andy Nelson
Okay, no. Yeah, we’re not seeing Clubber Lang show up and it’s not his son, as far as we know. It hasn’t been revealed, but I’m pretty sure you never know.

Pete Wright
As far as we know, Jesus, you just made a conspiracy.

Andy Nelson
There’s always room. There’s always room.

Pete Wright
I wait a minute, I gotta go to TMZ and just wait and refresh.

Andy Nelson
They didn’t not say it. But yeah, and you know, okay, yes, spiritual, I guess you could say, for sure. But it is the nature of franchises to kind of have these threads. And so I guess to that end, I just enjoyed the way that Creed II had that connective tissue that for me made for a really emotional journey. Creed III, I definitely appreciate everything you’re saying that they’re going for a different feel, Coogler’s vision, especially as we get to that final boxing match shifts it into giving it a different tone that really kind of made it very different. And that final conversation between the two of them really kind of made the film click for me. But there’s so much plotty nature of the way the story is put together to get us there that just made me roll my eyes so often in this movie. Again, this is the Rocky franchise. That’s happened a lot. I’ve dealt with little house cleaning robots or whatever we had. Like there’s been a lot of weird nonsense in this franchise that I’ve not really liked.

Pete Wright
You did.

Andy Nelson
But and so I acknowledge all of that, but I don’t know. I think I have thus far kind of preferred the Creed films to the Rocky films. And Creed III, kind of, I mean two out of five or six. This one made me question some of that because I felt like, okay, we’re just kind of like it still is just the Rocky franchise. There’s some stuff in here that, you know, just roll my eyes out.

Pete Wright
Well, I’ll tell you, I want to put some different words to I think the sense that you’re conveying here for me, which is when I say it’s a four star movie doing five star stuff, there is a bit in this movie where it turns and accelerates to the point that we just have to take as writ that this guy can come out of prison for eighteen years and within a matter of weeks be standing in a title fight for the World Heavyweight Championship. And it is a distinctly Rocky move to expect us to believe that ascendance, right? That is a distinctly Rocky trope to expect us to believe that.

Andy Nelson
Absolutely.

Pete Wright
And if it had been, I contend, any other performer in that role besides Jonathan Majors, we will talk about. I don’t think I would have bought it, but I think this guy’s performance in this movie opposite Jordan is transcendent. I think it is really, really good. It transcends the material he was given and creates an emotional human with a terrible, a distinctly sort of anti-privileged background. And offers us something, I think, to think about in a way that some of the Rocky movies did not, especially the robot one.

Andy Nelson
You know, I’m just glad he didn’t have to box the robot last year.

Pete Wright
Oh God, see that would be today’s next Creed is just Creed against AI.

Andy Nelson
Let’s just say that would be yeah. Right. Yeah, creative grants the mercy machine.

Pete Wright
Right. It’s Ava, man. I just watched Ex Machina last night and she can take him.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, she could definitely do it.

Pete Wright
Yeah.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, there you go. So I think that what works is because they do develop this emotional story between these two characters. A very interesting, I mean I should, it’s not exactly a surprise as far as a backstory for characters. You know, it’s like, okay, I feel like I’ve seen this backstory many times. Rocky past, one of them goes one way, one goes the other. The one who went down ended up in jail, all that comes back looking for a way to kind of get back into the spotlight. Like I feel like that’s a very tropey story. So it’s not original in that extent. What we have Michael B. Jordan and Jonathan Majors bringing to it largely, even when it is tropey, they play it really well and they bring the emotions that make it work. I still struggle so much though with a lot of the plot mechanics that make the story feel more engineered than it needs to. And that’s where I get frustrated because so much of the elements that are behind this story just feel very engineered. I’m not talking so much about their childhood, even if it is tropey, the two of them growing up in a home, struggling. They have a foster father there who’s abusive to the both of them and they end up beating him at one point or specifically it seems like Adonis is the one who beats him and then when Damien shows up to help and pulls a gun on the guys who are trying to pull Adonis off. The police show up. Damien goes to jail for eighteen years. That’s essentially the story. And then Adonis gets taken in by Apollo Creed and his wife, Mary Anne, and his life goes one way. What I struggle with, and the thing that just like they set it up and then it’s just hanging there is the letters. And we have this set up early on when they first kind of when Damien first shows up at the gym. It’s like, yeah, I never heard back from you after I wrote you all those letters. And Adonis is like, what letters? Oh, well, I sent them to your home. He’s like, well, has your mom moved? I’m like, she’s at the same place. I’m like, oh, there it is. Mom’s got the letters, and it’s gonna be a big thing that we have. And then Adonis never asks her about it. Like it’s just sitting there for us to be dwelling on. And it’s this plot point where it’s just like, okay, it’s gonna come back and it’s gonna be a big thing that’s gonna bite Adonis in the ass. And sure enough it does. And it’s after the whole thing of getting to the place where they’re gonna be boxing against each other, and Mary Anne finally goes through the letters, finds the photo featuring Damien and this guy who went into a club and beat up Drago’s son. just so that he could like finagle his way into this match. And like that was like the mechanics that we got all and I’m just like, oh God. It’s like it just, it was tedious screenwriting, honestly. Like I just, I couldn’t believe how frustrated it made me because it’s just like everything just was like so rudimentary as far as the way they put it together.

Pete Wright
Yeah, I mean I absolutely see that. And I’m and I think the degree to which I end up liking this movie is the degree to which I’m suckered by the trope. And we know I mean tropes are tropes for a reason, because if they’re done right, they work. And you are pointing out the place where it didn’t work. I didn’t love the letter sequestering the letters and sometimes you give Phylicia Rashad crappy material and she’s amazing. And sometimes you give her crappy material and it’s just crappy material and so the whole mechanic of I hid the letters, I reached up and I found the letters, I showed you the letters, we had an insufficient conversation about the letters and then you leave in a rage. All the whole letters thing was just an excuse to get you to stomp out in a rage to go accost your new assailant. Meanwhile, mom has a stroke. Like, it’s just that mechanic was exhausting. And the reason it is a double-edged complaint. The reason I don’t like it is because it is such a rudimentary, your word, right, way to put this together. The reason I like it is because it’s so fast. It moves on to the stuff I’m interested in very quickly. It gets me back to that confrontation. And frankly, can I say as an aside, may I approach the bench? He walks into that beachside campfire party and he punches that dude with I’m gonna assume a right hook. I don’t know, but he punches him really hard and lays him out. This is Creed punches a random guy in the head really hard and knocks him out. I think that guy might be dead.

Andy Nelson
I think that’s yeah, that would be assault.

Pete Wright
That would be I mean he just killed a guy.

Andy Nelson
Possibly with a deadly weapon. I mean, considering he’s a world-class boxer.

Pete Wright
Yeah, right. Right. Maybe that wasn’t the move. Like, maybe that wasn’t the move. You’d think he’d have a better handle on his equipment. But the fact that we have that confrontation and that sort of unraveling to just move on to the thing we wanted all along, which is how are these guys going to go in the boxing ring and have a fight that isn’t about the fight today, but is actually about the 18 years that Dame spent in prison. I wanted that fight, and that’s the fight I feel like I got.

Andy Nelson
I no, I agree. It just takes a long time to get there because honestly, from I mean you’re right, it moves fast from the time that Adonis and his mom finally talk about the letters and have their fight. But that letter thing we learn at the beginning of the movie when Dame first goes in there and it’s just hanging there and he never brings it up. He doesn’t mention it at all when he’s, you know, the other thing that was frustrating is just how they wrote his emotional relationship with Bianca because I’m just like, come on, this is really kind of ridiculous that like has he always been portrayed, maybe he’s always been portrayed as just a guy who can’t open up and share his feelings, but it just seemed so specifically tropey just to and not even tropey, just like lazy writing just to keep the problem from getting dealt with until the third act. Like that’s why it’s there. It’s just hanging there and only because of plot reasons. Like I didn’t buy his emotional, I can’t talk about my feelings. Like that was just so frustrating. They have this whole issue with the daughter who punches a friend or a kid at school. That issue never gets dealt with. They just kind of like talk about it and but they never we never see a resolution of that situation. And so it just kind of like sets these things up and it lets them sit there. And we just kind of like dance around all of it until we finally get to everything speeding up in the third act. And that’s you know, it made for a frustrating lazy like a watch of a lazy script is how I felt. Even though I had fun. I did have fun.

Pete Wright
Okay, qualification, qualification. I will say, to your point, just diving a little bit into the relationship between Creed and Bianca. I feel like we said this last time. We’re gonna say it again. Once again, Tessa Thompson is given less to do than she deserves. I get that she is a multiple Grammy winning producer, and just giving her a career does not give her a role. And that I found is frustrating. I would like to see if you want to go to Polymarket and do a bet on whether or on what number Creed film happens to be the one where Amara the daughter is our protagonist boxer because I think that’s what they’re setting up.

Andy Nelson
Oh. I that’s exactly what I was like. Okay, I’m like, okay, we’re getting ready for the eventual end of the Adonis films and moving into Amara. So it’ll be the Rocky Creed Amara franchise that we’ll have here.

Pete Wright
Yes.

Andy Nelson
Yeah.

Pete Wright
Well, and we should also say, in an act of extraordinary just sort of I don’t know, I think it’s really great that they cast what is her name, Amara the actress. She is deaf, she’s wonderful, I think she’s adorable, and yes, she’s fantastic.

Andy Nelson
Mila Davis-Kent.

Pete Wright
So I am a fan of the daughter for what she gets to do. I think they do a fine job of giving us a sense that there is this sort of family in the three of them, and they don’t perseverate too much on the extraordinary wealth. Again, I say that only by comparison to the Rocky movies of its sort of genre era when they really part of the Rocky story is figuring out how to deal with the extraordinary wealth that comes with it. I didn’t get a feeling that Creed was having any trouble with the extraordinary wealth that came with what he was doing.

Andy Nelson
He hasn’t bought a robot for his house yet.

Pete Wright
He hasn’t bought well yet, yeah.

Andy Nelson
Yeah. Yeah. There’s still room.

Pete Wright
Yeah.

Andy Nelson
There’s still time.

Pete Wright
Yeah. So.

Andy Nelson
I think that was Rocky IV, so we can expect that by Creed IV.

Pete Wright
Next time.

Andy Nelson
All right, we’re going to take a quick break, but first. You can find the show on YouTube and you can join us live when we record. We will even take your questions in the post-show chit-chat. Live, everyone is welcome. And members get the replay and the extended cut. Subscribe to The Next Reel on YouTube. The link to this episode is in the show notes. We’ll be right back.

Pete Wright
Okay. Man, Jonathan Majors. Just the hard truth of that guy’s life and career is that, you know, he is yet again a guy that is forcing us to address just how much separation of career and personal life we have to acquit in watching this movie. I think your initial point comment was right on. Like the movie came out in theaters and then there is a certain ick factor to starting to hear about what he was ultimately convicted of and the fact that he was clearly over the course of a decade a danger to many of the women in his life. That is incredibly frustrating. I mean it just sucks because his performance is really great. His career to this point was really great. I was a huge booster for the Kang series that we were looking forward to in the MCU and he was dropped from those things. Word has it that Michael B. Jordan has said, I’m absolutely down for making another movie with Majors. That’s great. I don’t know that I have seen any of Major’s efforts to sort of reclaim his identity in this process and seek sort of the public forgiveness. Maybe it’s too soon. But this movie, I feel like whatever you think of the movie, for me, it was a heartbreaking watch because of this guy who just torpedoed himself and was taken out of the game.

Andy Nelson
Yeah.

Pete Wright
Rightfully so. I mean he was, I this is I don’t want to come off as an apologist for him at all, just that I am grieving for what you know potentially we lost, because he just couldn’t get his head on straight.

Andy Nelson
I mean this is around the same time he also had that indie film that I think played well at Sundance called Magazine Dreams where he’s the bodybuilder. That was supposed to be really good. And that also killed the release of that. I think it did finally get a very limited release, but it’s very frustrating because I mean I think that I first saw him in The Last Black Man in San Francisco and just really kind of was captivated by him as a performer. And I think that I mean I don’t feel like I’d seen him in much. Like that, Da 5 Bloods, Loki and well, unfortunately, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

Pete Wright
Stop it. Stop it.

Andy Nelson
So bad. And it’s not his fault at all. It’s just a terrible, terrible movie. And so it’s frustrating because it’s there’s a lot of a lot of stuff that came out around that whole time and I just don’t know, I don’t know where he stands as far as being able to kind of get himself back on track and if he’s been in a situation where he’s been able to kind of work through his personal demons and whatever. So I don’t know. Well I guess we’ll see where it goes.

Pete Wright
I know it’s small screen, but did you ever check out any Lovecraft Country?

Andy Nelson
It’s on my list of things that I still want to check out. I heard I know it’s just one season, so it’s an easy watch for me. So and I’ve heard great things, so I want to check it out.

Pete Wright
Series over on Sitting in the Dark and I use that as an excuse to dive into that and that’s another one which is just like his performance is you can see this guy right there on that small screen is gonna be a major star. He’s gonna be a major star. So it is sad for, you know, the career that could have been and for all of the people that he hurt over his years. So.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, that’s the frustrating part.

Pete Wright
Okay. Can we talk about some of these tent pole fight moments? That’s a thing we used to talk about with these movies, right? Is that actual fighting?

Andy Nelson
Yeah, yeah, and there’s not a lot of it here. We’ve got the opening fight.

Pete Wright
In Africa.

Andy Nelson
And we’ve got the closing fight. And then we’ve got some sparring matches and stuff in the middle. And we do have the boxing match when he goes up against the guy. What’s his name?

Pete Wright
Felix.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, Felix, who had kind of taken the title.

Pete Wright
Yeah.

Andy Nelson
So in this, I honestly it’s been so long since I watched the other films. I can’t remember specifics about how they were directed. As far as like being able to compare and contrast. I don’t know, do you remember much about the fights?

Pete Wright
Well, I feel like they were, I mean, the franchise established the sort of kineticism of shooting in the ring and I think there is a really, I remember in the first one, Creed, how exciting it was to watch the behind the scenes footage when Creed takes a hit that knocks him out, right? Those kinds of things to establish sort of the visceral violence in the ring. I think they did a good job there. But this one does do something different from other fight movies, I feel like, and I didn’t know it. I didn’t couldn’t put my finger on it until I read that just how much influence he took from anime best friends fighting stories in anime manga and being able to sort of go back and watch that, especially the first fight, even more than the last fight.

Andy Nelson
And manga.

Pete Wright
But the first fight, the way they capture eyes, body parts, the way they capture impact, the way they slow the film down so dramatically to show the sort of over exaggerated rivers of flesh that appear when you impact them so heavily.

Andy Nelson
Looked very CG and it took me out of the fights, honestly.

Pete Wright
Damn it, another thing that took you out of the movie. Andy, I’m fishing for the good stuff here. I really liked it. I thought it was great.

Andy Nelson
By the time we get to the third fight, I was enjoying it. But those moments like of the, I mean I enjoy the moments that you’re talking about of like the close-up of the eyes, like you’re getting in the head of the boxer, the way that he’s recognizing as this guy is swinging, he’s leaving open his torso, like the side of his torso, so that he can attack that at the right moment. We’re seeing kind of in his head, and I liked all of that. I just really didn’t like the waves, the impact waves that rippled through the flesh as it happened, as he hit him, because that just felt it just looked very CG. It didn’t suddenly I was like, okay, I just left a boxing movie and I’m just like, now I’m now I’m in a cartoon, which again is he was kind of going for that anime manga feel, but it just it pulled any it pulled me out of the reality of it.

Pete Wright
Interesting. Okay. The one that may have pulled me out of the reality, ironically, is the final sort of crowning blow where Dame has his hands up in front of his face and he’s doing the peekaboo thing to block and Creed punches through the peekaboo arms to hit him in the face. That was the one where I couldn’t help but saying peekaboo and that took me, I took myself out of the movie. But beyond all of that sort of the specific grand fight impact.

Andy Nelson
That’s funny.

Pete Wright
Where they fight alone, right? They drop the stadium out, they drop sound, they drop everything and we end up with this ethereal realm and we don’t come out of it until the end. So where do you stand on the fighting in the matrix?

Andy Nelson
I loved that.

Pete Wright
Okay.

Andy Nelson
That to me was such a to give you a sense of relief finally.

Pete Wright
Whew. What a relief. Yes, I got one.

Andy Nelson
I was so excited by what Jordan did there and how he chose to tell this story that took it out of the boxing ring and gave us this struggle between these two people who there was this rift that had been sitting there for all this time and Adonis obviously hadn’t been thinking about it, but Damien and his return brought it back and now like it’s something that Adonis has to deal with and the conflicts of his own past and where he is and how he got to where he is and all of the stuff that he’s now thinking about and carrying. It all comes out in that moment. And just to take a moment before all of that, there’s a fantastic shot that Jordan and his cinematographer crafts where it’s right before the fight, and I think like Adonis comes to talk to Damien briefly in his locker room. And as Adonis leaves down the hallway, the shot is split by the wall between the hallway where Adonis is and the room where Damien is and you have the two of them and they hit their marks where they both stop and they both turn and look at the other, but it’s they’re separated by the wall, but the way the shot is constructed is just it’s beautiful. And I think it really spoke to that separation that these two men have that led to that fight. Like I just it was really well crafted.

Pete Wright
Yeah, I think it really was. And it’s one of those it’s an interesting thing thinking about first of all, I just I think they call them locker rooms in sport.

Andy Nelson
Thank you, thank you. I knew there was a better term than dressing room.

Pete Wright
I can’t I feel like I don’t want to get letters.

Andy Nelson
My head was again I’m not a watcher of boxing and stuff, but yeah. I should have known that, yeah.

Pete Wright
I think that sets up that emotional dynamic of the fact that these guys are not just about boxing each other. It’s not just about the title, right? That they’re he’s even able to come in and have that conversation before the bout without it you know, break up into just roid rage. I don’t know how they do that. That that’s a special head place that I can’t quite wrap mine around. But I love it. I love that they’re capable of having those moments. And it’s just a reminder that in some ways this is what Rocky franchise movies have to be once they saturate the boxing part. Like you said it, there isn’t a lot of boxing in here. You know, what we get are these big tentpole moments in the beginning and the end and the middle one of that is the sort of inciting fight. But ultimately this is about two guys who are trying to figure out how to come to terms with one another over their past trauma and deep, deep grief. And frankly, love for each other from childhood. And that is what this last fight is about. That’s what the fight represents, is them trying to exercise a demon between them, which leads to the final after the bout, after Creed wins and wins, you know, somewhat spectacularly, we get a moment where they get to talk to each other in the locker room and we actually get an apology, right? We get or we get a reckoning. We get them saying none of this was on you, man. Like none of this was on you too. And that’s that’s like I love you, man. We’re okay. After all of this, we’re okay. Did that hit you?

Andy Nelson
It did. There’s still a problem with it, but it worked for me.

Pete Wright
Oh no.

Andy Nelson
No, it worked.

Pete Wright
Oh no.

Andy Nelson
It worked. But it left me going, okay, because at the end, you know, they both like come together and it’s like, hey, it’s not your fault. It’s not your fault either. Let’s be friends. And Creed says, you know, hey, you know where I am, you can reach out, whatever. So we have that moment. But I also wanted him to say, but you’re still gonna have to go to jail for sicking the guy on Drago. Like that’s never dealt with.

Pete Wright
And Andy snatching defeat.

Andy Nelson
He beat a, he hired a guy to beat somebody up so that he could get into all of this. And that really I’m sure Drago’s a little pissed about the whole thing. Like that was a problem that was left hanging that irritated me. That I’m like, okay, we still have to deal with that.

Pete Wright
They also didn’t deal with the beach guy that Creed killed.

Andy Nelson
No, they didn’t. You’re right. You’re right. So many things that they didn’t deal with.

Pete Wright
Your point is well taken.

Andy Nelson
His daughter, they’re setting up people for his daughter to battle in later films.

Pete Wright
Yeah, you bet they are. You bet they are. All right. Well, I found it. I really enjoyed that part. And I think when I watch it without thinking about the quibbles, I find it very, very touching and a beautiful way to end.

Andy Nelson
No, I agree with all that. But I want to go back to how you feel. Because we talked about this a little bit, but I do feel that it’s worth spending a little more time on the fact that Rocky isn’t in this movie at all. They don’t even drop his name in it. Like I was at least expecting them to mention his name. Like I knew from having heard about it that he wasn’t in it, but I’m like, well surely they’ll just acknowledge that Rocky was part of this franchise at some point, but no, like completely dropped out entirely. And I’m curious where you stand with that because I mean Sylvester Stallone, he found out that he wasn’t in it and he was it didn’t sound like he was thrilled. I think his problem was mostly with Irwin Winkler, who’s I mean, frankly, a great producer who’s been around since the sixties producing a lot of great films, but and bought the rights from Stallone in like the mid or like the late seventies, I think after Rocky or maybe after Rocky II bought the rights, and so has just been cranking it out since then. And Stallone like puts most of the blame. He calls Irwin Winkler a parasite for picking clean the bones of characters that he created. So he’s a little frustrated with that. Although he’s been in all of them up until this point. So just as a reminder, he certainly has been profiting off of that parasite.

Pete Wright
Yeah.

Andy Nelson
He quotes, this is a quote from Stallone, that he didn’t like the darker direction that they took for it. He said, that’s a regretful situation because I know what it could have been. It was taken in a direction that is quite different than I would have taken it. It’s a different philosophy, Irwin Winkler’s and Michael B. Jordan’s. I wish them well, but I’m much more of a sentimentalist. I like my heroes getting beat up. But I just don’t want them going into that dark space. I just feel people have enough darkness.

Pete Wright
Yeah.

Andy Nelson
So, I mean, how does all that sit with you?

Pete Wright
Well, okay, so this is apparently the grievance with Winkler goes back to Rocky IV. It actually goes back earlier than that, right? Because he bought him out, as you said, he bought him out really early. And here Rocky has been in and written every word of these things of this character and choreographed it and done all the, taken all the hits. And essentially Winkler’s response was, hey man, you got paid. And Stallone, for years and years, decades, didn’t want to, as he says it, ruffle the golden goose. And so you know, I get that. I don’t know that I would necessarily characterize them as parasites when in fact you’re the one who sold the rights yourself. Like you did that. You made that deal. And he was, I guess, expecting more goodwill from Winkler. I don’t know, but just knowing that there is such a contentious relationship between the two parties, it didn’t surprise me that he was not in it. And I actually liked that we didn’t have any of that specific Balboa baggage to deal with. There was none of it, right? None of it. Because we got a new story. We got, I mean, I mean you’ll argue differently, but we got, I think, a new story and it feels emotionally different because we didn’t have the weight of Rocky in the room. Now the trade-off is we have no mentor figure really anymore. Duke doesn’t cut it as a quote mentor figure in the corner. Rocky was that for Creed, just how Mickey was that for Rocky when he was just coming up. That mentor figure is completely gone. And I think it actually leads to one of the emptiest montages in franchise history where these guys train themselves. And like Majors is just sitting there knocking guys out, right?

Andy Nelson
Yeah.

Pete Wright
Just waiting for somebody good to come in and box with him.

Andy Nelson
New part, all right.

Pete Wright
Yeah, and Creed already knows it all, right? And so he’s sort of orchestrating his own training. I don’t know. I mean that didn’t work for me as well as I expected, but it’s not because I think Stallone isn’t in it. I was actually okay that Stallone was gone. You?

Andy Nelson
You know, when I watch the film and just kind of see the story that unfolds, it works to not have him in it because it just doesn’t feel like it’s specifically like there’s that connective tissue to him. It does just feel weird when it’s the Rocky franchise and then he just doesn’t show up at all. And you could effectively call it the Rocky Creed franchise now, but at the same time it’s just like, yeah, but Rocky’s always been here and has always been part of it. And is it still a Rocky franchise if suddenly Rocky is not even mentioned in a story? And that just struck me as a little strange. And, you know, just as a side note, you mentioned Duke and I have to bring up a complaint I had about him. Like what was the reason that we needed, like I hated the fact that he had to be in.

Pete Wright
Of course.

Andy Nelson
That boxing moment in their childhood just so that he could see Damien and the problem like the problem child that Dame was in that initial boxing match. Cause it’s like, okay, that that just didn’t play for me at all. It’s like cause more than anything, what it shows us is that he sees Adonis putting in the bet. Like that’s where it shows us like we see his face looking, and I’m like, okay, so what’s this all about? Why does he need to be in this flashback? It was irritating, but.

Pete Wright
It really underscores to like more than just the fact that Rocky isn’t an emotional beat in the movie. I was kind of like I felt like they actually ended Rocky’s tenure okay in the last movie. Right. This really underscores like the I don’t know, creative evolution of the character of this just wreckage of a human dispute about authorship and legacy and Hollywood and the people who get to be rich and the people who make it rich. Like it’s very, very sad. And I will say all of this with the huge caveat that if Creed IV comes out and suddenly Creed just walks alone at night and ends up walking up the stoop to an old brownstone and knocks on the door and the door opens and it’s Rocky in his hat, I’m gonna be excited about that. Like I just let you know right now, I’ll be moved if Rocky comes back. But I didn’t need him in this movie. I was okay.

Andy Nelson
Was his, remind me, Milo Ventimiglia Junior, was his son.

Pete Wright
Yeah, I don’t know.

Andy Nelson
In the second or like in Rocky Balboa and then he comes back at the end of the second one. He wasn’t also a boxer, was he? Cause I’m wondering like is that a place that the franchise could go?

Pete Wright
Oh no.

Andy Nelson
Like, could we bring Rocky back, but now it’s his son?

Pete Wright
Wow. I hope you didn’t just introduce something horrible. Would that be horrible? Don’t do it again, you guys. Don’t do don’t do it again. Don’t listen to Andy.

Andy Nelson
I’m not saying I want that. I’m just saying, you know, what is this franchise? And I, you know, I’m happy to have it the Rocky Creed franchise. Like I really enjoy the Creed films. But it does in the end, I think what it actually becomes is the Winkler franchise. And it just becomes whatever Irwin Winkler, and we’ll just call out, two of his sons are now also producers on this, Charles and David Winkler. So it really is kind of the evolution of the Winkler franchise that we’re watching. And it’s gonna go wherever they think it will make money. And I think that’s the bottom line is they want to make money with this and they don’t care which stories they pull from.

Pete Wright
Yeah. Yeah, they don’t care. And it’s I mean, it’s fine. I guess it’s not fine if you’re Sylvester Stallone, who is doing fine. This is a, what is it, almost a two billion dollar character across the franchise, Rocky Balboa, and he gets you know, he gets his contract stakes in it but not points on the character. And that’s the part I think he’s super bitter about. But it’s hard for me to feel brokenhearted about a guy who is doing fine.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, oh I mean he’s definitely doing fine. And he I mean he was a producer on this. So I mean he’s still absolutely, I don’t know if he was active or if that’s just a glamor title.

Pete Wright
He was not. That that’s the that’s part of the controversy.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, just.

Pete Wright
He got a producer credit, but he had absolutely no creative input on the film.

Andy Nelson
And he didn’t even want to watch it like he said, I’m not even gonna go see it. So it’s very interesting.

Pete Wright
Yeah.

Andy Nelson
This is also a franchise that loves killing its characters. Have you noticed that? Like Mickey gets killed, Apollo, Adrian dies off screen.

Pete Wright
Yeah, Adrian dies off screen. Did Felix get, was Felix killed? Did you get the, is it?

Andy Nelson
No, he was in the last match. He was watching. He was cheering on.

Pete Wright
Oh, he was watching. You’re right. He was sitting next to what’s her name?

Andy Nelson
Yeah. Yeah.

Pete Wright
Okay.

Andy Nelson
And then Mary Anne dies in this one.

Pete Wright
Yeah.

Andy Nelson
And I’m just wondering, like maybe they’re setting it up for if Sylvester Stallone does come back that he dies. Cause I feel like that’s where we keep going.

Pete Wright
Yeah.

Andy Nelson
Like who else can we kill? We gotta kill somebody else in this franchise. That’s how we really draw people in with the heart strings.

Pete Wright
It’s a death.

Andy Nelson
Gotta have another funeral sequence.

Pete Wright
You’ve come, this is a hard Monday morning recording for you, isn’t it?

Andy Nelson
Oh my gosh. A little punchy, a little punchy.

Pete Wright
Yeah. Don’t say it.

Andy Nelson
Get it?

Pete Wright
A little, that’s a little much.

Andy Nelson
Oh man.

Pete Wright
I have to make a comment and I want to say out loud where the comment is coming from because I just so happen to have the window open to the comments, the member comments. But I have to, I’m gonna take this rather than taking it after the show because I wanted to talk about it here in the show and I just forgotten until Raging Bull said this. How about when somebody told MBJ he was old and broken so he couldn’t win the rematch? Is this the most jacked MBJ has been on screen and in the Creed movies? Yes, yes it is. That I can’t believe, Andy, that you didn’t bring this up as the least believable point in the movie. He looks great. His skin is soft, his pores are tight, his muscles are throbbing. He’s got a serious pump on all the time. There is no universe in which I would believe that he is too old and broken to get back in the ring. That was the that was a difficult thing for me to imagine.

Andy Nelson
I a hundred percent agree, especially in a world where Rocky was boxing into what his sixties.

Pete Wright
Sixties.

Andy Nelson
I mean, come on. Like and suddenly we’re like, sorry, Adonis, you’ve hit, I don’t know, thirty-five, you’re out. Now I get it.

Pete Wright
I know.

Andy Nelson
Like the world of athletes is about youth. I totally understand that, but in the films like, yeah, no, he’s fine. He’s fine. The fact that he’s retiring, I’m like, the movie begins with him retiring. I’m like, well, this is a weird way to start a movie.

Pete Wright
Yeah.

Andy Nelson
Like he’s the hero of our movie and he’s already retiring. So yeah, it was strange.

Pete Wright
I do you know, it it makes me wonder, like you know, because there are, I don’t do, I don’t do sport. I don’t do sport. But I do hear that there are people who say who have researched that sport today, especially things like contact sports, people hit harder. They are stronger, bigger, and hit harder than ever before in history. And maybe being a heavyweight boxer today is different than it was in 1975.

Andy Nelson
That’s entirely likely.

Pete Wright
I mean, they didn’t say any of that in the movie. Like there’s no justification.

Andy Nelson
No, no. Right.

Pete Wright
But.

Andy Nelson
Which of the Rocky movies had all the science? It was Drago. It was Rocky IV where Drago, where they’re.

Pete Wright
Drago, yeah. Yeah. So we haven’t gotten there yet.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, so that’s the next movie where they’re gonna be analyzing all this. And then Rocky Balboa is where they had the little, the, no, was it Rocky Balboa or then Rocky V when they had all the.

Pete Wright
Street Fight.

Andy Nelson
Computer programming to determine like the best fighter and stuff, right? So.

Pete Wright
That’s right, you’re right. Jordan himself looks like thirty seven, thirty-nine.

Andy Nelson
Right now.

Pete Wright
Yeah. God, the guy looks great. Come on.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, does look great.

Pete Wright
He is just crushing it. So is Majors. I mean, they just they were physical damned specimens.

Andy Nelson
These, that’s one thing that’s always impressive with these is the extent that the actors go to to actually deliver this work in the ring, like it’s crazy. And I can’t imagine filming a scene where you’re actively punching somebody as the director of the film and then stopping to talk about it. Like, okay, let’s try it this way as you’re like shaking off the fact that you just got punched.

Pete Wright
He just got hit in the head.

Andy Nelson
Like, I’m just like, oh, this is, that’s like a crazy amount of work. And it’s I mean, you know, Sylvester Stallone is doing it too. But it’s just like it’s amazing what these people go through as they’re also writing, directing, producing these films.

Pete Wright
Just for me to watch, Andy, no thank you.

Andy Nelson
All right. Well, I guess that’s about it. So we’re gonna move into the back half first. Let’s take a quick break.

Pete Wright
The Next Reel is a production of TruStory FM, engineering by Andy Nelson, music by Tzabutan, Skrxlla, Oriol Novella and Eli Catlin. Andy usually finds all the stats for the awards and numbers at the-numbers.com, boxofficemojo.com, IMDb.com, and wikipedia.org. Find the show and the full archive at truestory.fm. You can follow us from there too and learn about membership. Check out our merch store at thenextreel.com/merch, and if your app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show. All right, I know they’re talking about it. We’ve already hinted at it. Sequels and remakes, Andy.

Andy Nelson
After this film came out, Michael B. Jordan confirmed that a fourth Creed film was happening, quote, for sure. And that spin-offs were also being considered. What those are, I don’t know, but I’m sure his daughter is gonna be involved in those. When asked about the future of the Creed movie franchise in an interview with Screen Rant Plus, Jordan said, quote, but you will see the Creed-verse continue to grow and expand.

Pete Wright
I’m not going to be able to do that.

Andy Nelson
I think that we invested in some really interesting characters that I think a lot of people were responding to. I have to give a political answer to that. There’s going to be more of the Creed family, and there’s going to be more of some of the characters that you love from this movie. I just don’t know what package it’s going to be in yet. Irwin Winkler later that year confirmed the fourth movie was in active development with Jordan returning as director, and Jordan also expressed interest in actually having Stallone return for that fourth film, believing there’s always space for Rocky to return. And then just last year, March 2025, Jordan said, I would like to work with Jonathan Majors again. I would love to make Creed IV together, among other projects. So who knows? That’s the last anyone’s said anything about it. I don’t know where they are in the plans, but I’m sure we can expect it at some point.

Pete Wright
Okay. Well, I mean I’ll see it, and I’m sure I will love it irrationally. How did this do at award season?

Andy Nelson
Well it had two wins with twenty-six other nominations. At the BET Awards it was nominated for Best Movie, but lost to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. At the NAACP Image Awards, nominated for Outstanding Soundtrack Compilation Album but lost to The Color Purple. Outstanding Breakthrough Performance in Motion Picture for Mila Davis-Kent, but lost to Felicia Pearl Mapasse in The Color Purple. Outstanding Performance by a Youth in a Motion Picture, Mila Davis-Kent, she won. Outstanding Duo Group or Collaboration, Traditional for one of the songs on the album, but lost to Ciara and Chris Brown in How We Roll. Outstanding Director in a Motion Picture, lost to Ava DuVernay for Origin. Outstanding Hairstyling, TV or Film, but lost to The Color Purple. And it won, fittingly, for Outstanding Stunt Ensemble for TV or Film. At the MTV Movie and TV Awards, Jordan was nominated for Best Performance in a Movie, but lost to Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick. And at the Black Reel Awards, Jordan was nominated for Outstanding Director, but lost to Cord Jefferson for American Fiction. Likewise lead performance, but lost to Jeffrey Wright in American Fiction. Outstanding Soundtrack lost to The Color Purple, and Outstanding Supporting Performance for Majors lost to Danielle Brooks in The Color Purple.

Pete Wright
You kind of forget just how many big, big movies this was against.

Andy Nelson
Yeah.

Pete Wright
It’s like this movie had no wiggle room for controversy in a fight against all these other movies and Majors happens. Right? It’s like there was no breath for this. Although you could say that Creed III is the Wakanda Forever to the Creed franchise.

Andy Nelson
Could you?

Pete Wright
Think about that. Just think about that. All right, how did it do at the box office?

Andy Nelson
Well for Jordan’s directorial debut, he was given 75 million or 77.2 million in today’s dollars. Pretty handsome way to start, huh? The movie had a premiere in Mexico City on February ninth, 2023, coinciding with Jordan’s birthday, and then opened wide March third opposite Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – To the Swordsmith Village, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, and yet another Children of the Corn reboot. The film easily took the number one spot and stayed in the top ten for six weeks, not showing much of a dent when the news about Majors broke shortly after it opened. The movie went on to earn $156.2 million domestically and $119.9 million internationally for a total gross of $276.1 million in today’s dollars.

Pete Wright
Wow. I have to say I did not read ahead. I did not expect it to be that high. Especially for a movie that we sort of collectively sigh at so many of the plot issues.

Andy Nelson
I collectively sigh. You seem to collectively forgive.

Pete Wright
Okay. That’s fair.

Andy Nelson
Yeah. But I mean I still liked it.

Pete Wright
Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. I mean I liked it enough. I’ll watch it again and I’m excited about it. Yeah. It’s a fine movie and it gives, it was great for Jordan as he’s stepping in as director. I’m really thrilled with what he was able to do.

Andy Nelson
If anything, that’s the thing that I was most excited to see, is that Michael B. Jordan proved himself a capable director bringing it to fruition. The script is what frustrates me the most, though it’s very plotty and mechanical, and that makes me struggle through most of the film, but because we get that final fight and we get that final conversation, it still clicked with me and I still walked away enjoying it.

Pete Wright
Okay.

Andy Nelson
So there you go. All right, that is it for our conversation about Jordan’s Creed III. Next week, we have a crossover one-off that’s a return to our Magicians series. It’s Caleb Deschanel and his directorial debut, the final film of Joan Hackett, Desi Arnaz, Jackie Coogan, and Gabriel Dell, and it’s the film debut of Harry Anderson. I’m sure none of those are the reason that you picked it. It’s from 1982, The Escape Artist, starring Griffin O’Neal, Raul Julia, and Teri Garr.

Pete Wright
I can’t wait.

Andy Nelson
All right, let’s do our ratings.

Pete Wright
Letterboxd Andy. letterboxd.com/thenextreel. That’s where you can find our HQ page. And that’s where we have all our ratings and reviews for the movies that we talk about on this show. What are you gonna do?

Andy Nelson
I am, you know, I enjoyed this enough, but three stars and a heart is where I sit. I don’t think I can get it higher than that with my problems with the script.

Pete Wright
You can’t get it higher than that with your problems, is the quote from this show. I am four stars and a heart. And I outed myself early as being a four-star booster of the movie. I think you’re right. I sigh right through my forgiveness of so many of the things in this movie because of what I do enjoy. I think that it does very, very well. So there you go.

Andy Nelson
There you go. That averages out to three and a half stars and a heart. You can find the show on Letterboxd at TheNextReel. You can find me there at SodaCreekFilm. You can find Pete there at PeteWright. So what did you think about Creed III? We would love to hear your thoughts. Hop into the Show Talk channel over in our Discord community where we will be talking about the movie this week.

Pete Wright
When the movie ends.

Andy Nelson
Our conversation begins.

Pete Wright
Letterboxd give it, Andy.

Andy Nelson
As Letterboxd always do it.

Pete Wright
Okay, I’ve, I’m gonna start with one because it’s on my side.

Andy Nelson
Oh, okay.

Pete Wright
It’s Team Pete. Didn’t even know it. Seth Reviews is on Team Pete with a four star. Says effing electric. Low key, this might be in the top three Rocky Creed films. Formulaic, yes, but I’d push you to name five modern sports movies that aren’t. Uses all of the tricks in the book, yet still manages to fill me with excitement, emotion, and motivation. Loved this.

Andy Nelson
Look at that. It is totally right in your court.

Pete Wright
Uh-huh. Yep.

Andy Nelson
That make you feel extra good?

Pete Wright
All right. Yeah, I guess. It didn’t sway you at all, so I guess it’s fine. It’s fine.

Andy Nelson
That didn’t swing me.

Pete Wright
Not that this is a competition, not that we’re sparring.

Andy Nelson
Yeah.

Pete Wright
We can have our own feelings, right?

Andy Nelson
That’s true. That’s true. And then we can see, and Pete, it’s not your fault.

Pete Wright
Right.

Andy Nelson
It’s not your fault.

Pete Wright
This isn’t on you, Andy. This is not on you.

Andy Nelson
But you will have to pay for beating that guy up.

Pete Wright
And you will have to go to jail for killing that one guy.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, that’s right.

Pete Wright
Okay, what do you got?

Andy Nelson
All right. You should be happy. I got a four-star just right in line with you.

Pete Wright
Oh.

Andy Nelson
Four stars and a heart by Paulo Velho, who says there’s no way Paul Rudd survived five minutes of a fight against Jonathan Majors. Back to Quantumania, yeah.

Pete Wright
That’s accurate.

Andy Nelson
A hundred percent, a hundred percent.

Pete Wright
Thanks, Letterboxd.