Michael B. Jordan to Direct Creed IV, Says Producer Irwin Winkler

Producer Irwin Winkler confirmed it Creed IV is in the works — and Michael B. Jordan is directing!

IN videos Posted by Deadline on x (formerly known as Twitter), Winkler, 92, revealed that the recording it will probably start in about a year. When asked if Jordan, 36, will return to Rocky franchise as a director, Winkler let the audience in on a secret.

“I shouldn’t say, but he will be,” the director said as the crowd erupted in laughter.

The announcement came shortly after Winkler confirmed the film during that same interview, adding that the SAG-AFTRA strike had “delayed” the pre-production process. He said he is excited to continue with the franchise.

“We think we have a really good story, a really good plot,” he said of the sports drama.

Michael B. Jordan’s ‘Creed III’ Has Biggest Sports Film Domestic Opening Ever With Historic $58.6M

Jordan made his directorial debut with Belief III, in which he also played the role of Adonis Johnson Creed, son of legendary boxer Apollo Creed (shown in Rocky films). The film was released in March 2023 and went down in history as the biggest domestic opening for a sports film.

It brought in more than $58 million in its opening weekend, MGM told The Hollywood Reporter.

Eli Ade

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The third film brought back the original cast of Jordan, Phylicia Rashad (Mary Anne Creed), Tessa Thompson (Adonis’ wife, Bianca), and Wood Harris (Adonis’ trainer), but was the first in the franchise not to feature Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa.

“It’s an unfortunate situation because I know what could have been,” Stallone said The Hollywood Reporter in 2022. “It was taken in a very different direction than I would have done it.”

Everything you need to know about ‘Creed III’

Alluding to creative differences behind the scenes, Stallone, 77, told the paper: “I’m much more of a sentimentalist. I like my heroes to be beaten up, but I just don’t want them to go into that dark space.”

Jordan, on the other hand, previously said that his role made him feel more comfortable with his directorial skills as he stepped into uncharted territory.

“I finally got to this place in my career where I really wanted to tell a story, you know, and not just be in front of the camera, not just execute someone else’s vision,” he said during a virtual Q&A in October 2022.

“And with a character that I’ve played twice before, you know it’s been seven, eight years of living with that guy, to be able to tell the story of where, I believe, Adonis is.”

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Source: HIS Education