MGM just dropped the full trailer to Creed II. As expected, this full-length trailer plays up the explicit connection to Rocky IV,
namely the return of Dolph Lundgren as Ivan Drago (the Russian boxer
who killed Apollo Creed during an exhibition match 33-years-ago) and the
appearance of Ivan’s son (Florian Munteanu). It looks like this sequel
to Creed, which itself was both Rocky VII and a serious drama mined from the most ridiculous of the Rocky sequels, will be a cross between Creed II and Rocky IV part 3.
The big question is whether or not Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa
will succumb to his cancer diagnosis ($5 says that first sequence in the
trailer features “Ghost Rocky”), and whether that death will
essentially play out like the death of Burgess Meredith’s Mickey in Rocky III.
It would be… unfortunate if that were the case
since such strict
source fidelity can mute the emotional impact of such moments. For
example, the death of Han Solo in The Force Awakens would have meant more had the film not so explicitly following the New Hope blueprint thus making Han’s death merely a carbon copy of Ben Kenobi’s fate.
The other question is whether the film can overcome it’s central
qualm, which is that it really is stupid for Creed (now with an infant
son) to fight this guy considering the risks and the odds. And since
every character we trust tells him not to do it, well, that’s one of the
reasons why Rocky IV (which at least was a slightly campy
melodrama) stumbles in its second act. I’m hoping this isn’t a film
whereby I spend the entire running hoping that Adonis will choose not to
fight the son of the guy who killed his dad in an equally foolish and
unneccesary boxing match.
Written by Cheo Hodari Cooker and directed by Steven Couple Jr., this
Ryan Coogler-produced sequel will have to balance the line between two
worlds. There will be those who want a nostalgic riff on Rocky IV and those who were thrilled by the mere idea of Creed (a
major studio character drama centered around a charismatic black actor
and his equally charismatic black girlfriend) and its overwhelming
quality. I hope Stallone and friends are smart enough to avoid the Alien: Covenant trap, whereby they sell it not as a sequel to the recent smash hit but as a sequel to a decades-old, once-popular franchise.
Creed II, distributed by MGM in North America and Warner
Bros./Time Warner Inc. (Warner Media) overseas, opens in the states on
Nov. 21, 2018. That’s the same Thanksgiving weekend shared by, fittingly
enough, Creed in 2015 and Rocky IV in 1985. To be fair, this year’s Thanksgiving Walt Disney toon, Ralph Breaks the Internet, will arguably be a bigger deal than Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur. But even if the second Creed doesn’t
measure up to the first modern classic, an over/under $35 million drama
can make a lot less than the $173m worldwide total of the first Creed and still qualify as a solid hit.Besides, I don’t think anyone expects this offshoot of the Rocky franchise to live forever. Michael B. Jordan is a busy guy. Come what may, Creed II, starring Michael B. Jordan (in his first outright starring role since Creed), Tessa Thompson, Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren and Florian Monteau) opens Nov. 21, 2018. As always, we’ll see.
