The lead actor makes his directorial feature debut with the highly anticipated sports drama, which will land in theaters in March 2023.
Creed III sees Michael B. Jordan change gears as he evolves from actor to actor-director. The highly anticipated sports drama sees him make his feature directorial debut with the third entry in the multimillion-dollar series born out of the iconic Rocky franchise.
2015’s Creed and the sequel, Creed II, grossed a combined $387.7 million at the box office. It’s hoped the latest entry will be another knockout hit with critics and audiences when it steps into the theatrical ring on Friday, March 3, 2023.
Set a few years after the previous entry, Creed III sees Jordan return as a thriving Adonis «Donnie» Creed. However, the good times get rocky when a childhood friend and former boxing prodigy turns up out of the blue. That friend is Anderson Dame, played by Jonathan Majors.
To mark the release of Creed III’s first trailer, Jordan attended a press conference and gave invited media a breakdown of what’s in store for audiences and fans. Here are a few of the highlights.
On getting behind the camera
It was the perfect time. Growing up on set, starting out doing background work, and seeing everybody’s jobs, I finally got to this place in my career where I wanted to tell the story and not just be in front of the camera and execute somebody else’s vision. Having a character that I’ve played twice before, it’s been seven or eight years living with this guy; I’m able to tell the story of where I believe Adonis is at. At 35 years old, I had a lot to say as a young black man, through my life experiences and how I could share a piece of myself with the world through these characters and the story. I just felt like it was the right time. I was talking to Ryan Coogler back when we were doing creative, and he was just like, ‘It’s never the right time. You’ve just got to jump in the deep end and go for it.’ He gave me a lot of encouragement.
The importance of representing the deaf community on screen
I think it was naturally the right evolution of the Creed family. Dealing with Bianca, Tessa Thompson’s character, since Creed and how that evolved to her becoming a mother and the possibility of our child being hard of hearing and ultimately being deaf, how the family evolves and grows, how do they deal with that obstacle and turn it into a superpower? It was a community of people that didn’t get true representation as much as they should have, and we use this as an opportunity to do that.
