‘Creed’ Goes Into the Oscar Ring with Michael B. Jordan and Sylvester Stallone
First we had Jake Gyllenhaal in Southpaw and now we have Michael B. Jordan in Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station follow-up, Creed. The boxing flick has been a long-time passion project for Coogler and is aimed to bring viewers new and old to the Rocky renaissance with Jordan starring as the son of Apollo Creed, played by Carl Weathers in the original Rocky quadrilogy. A recent attempt at a reboot of the Rocky series came in 2006 with Rocky Balboa in which Sylvester Stallone attempts a final fight but this time he smartly stays out of the ring and plays mentor to Jordan instead.
Will it make much of an impact at the Oscars? It could, but then I was pretty bullish on Fruitvale Station doing that and look how that turned out. Creed, a co-production between Warner Bros. and MGM could prove to be a stronger player this year though. Warner Bros. doesn’t have much in the form of a Best Actor contender (unless somehow Johnny Depp in Black Mass pays off) so this could be their ticket.
Creed opens on a very Oscar-friendly November 25th.
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