Every time I take a vacation there always seems to be gigantic film news that I should be covering for Movie Buzzers. Well, I was away for the past ten days and sure enough I missed a huge story about one of my all-time favorite movie franchises: Rocky.
But this doesn’t mean that sixty-seven year old Sylvester Stallone will be stepping into the ring again (actually he already has, but for the non-Rocky boxing comedy Grudge Match alongside Robert De Niro). According to Deadline, which broke the story last week, Rocky will return in the spinoff Creed, which will focus on the grandson of Rocky’s nemesis-turned-pal Apollo Creed (played by Carl Weathers in the first four Rocky films) as he decides to follow his grandfather’s footsteps into the ring.
Creed would be directed by Ryan Coogler and would star Michael B. Jordan, the newcomer director/actor team currently enjoying critical praise for Fruitvale Station. Fruitvale Station is an effective dramatic film (though I thought Coogler made a few rookie mistakes with the tone by laying it a bit thick), so I think both would be great choices for a drama about the grandson of a boxer who was killed in the ring entering the sport himself.
Naturally, there are some grumbling about the never-ending Rocky franchise (this would be the seventh Rocky movie). Many people ripped on Stallone for returning to his Rocky character for a sixth time in 2006’s Rocky Balboa, but a lot of those voices were silenced when the film turned out to be generally well-liked by audiences, did strong business at the box office, and served as a welcome comeback for Stallone’s sagging career. In addition, Rocky Balboa provided a look at the declining state of boxing in the twenty-first century. A hundred years ago boxing was arguably the most popular sport in America, but since the scandal-ridden fights of the 1990s, the explosion in popularity of MMA, and concerns about the health effects of having one’s head pounded in it’s arguably not even in the top ten. There’s still a lot that can be said about the decline of boxing’s popularity by using the world of Rocky.
Yes, in a sense Creed would be a “Rocky mentors a young talent” movie like Rocky V, which is generally regarded as the worst film in the franchise. But Rocky Balboa proved that Stallone learned from his mistakes in Rocky V, and if Stallone is wise enough to keep Rocky as a supporting character in Creed and let the new blood run the show it’ll be a brilliant way to bring the Rocky series full-circle. I also have a lot of faith in it because Deadline reports that it was Coogler himself who had the idea to do the spinoff — it was not a forced idea by MGM or Stallone himself. On top of that, Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, who have produced every Rocky film, will also produce the spinoff. It always says a lot to me when the original creators of something step back and allow new talent to play in their sandbox (something George Lucas learned a little too late).
My only concern is that seeing Rocky onscreen again will make me want to see the movie focus on his character. After all, Rocky has been part of cinema history for nearly forty years, and it’s hard to argue that he isn’t one of the most endearing film characters of all time even in the films that weren’t up to par. Yet here’s an opportunity to take the mythology of a beloved franchise and use that to create something refreshing. In a sense, it’s a lot like what Prometheus did with the Alien franchise, and while Prometheus wasn’t the sci-fi masterpiece most of us wanted it to be it probably was a heck of a lot better than a straight-up Alien 5 would have been.
I’m a big fan of recent films like Rise of the Planet of the Apes which make an effort to do something fresh and different with a long-running franchise instead of stamping out yet enough straight sequel. With that in mind, I’m ready to give Creed a chance — and I hope others are, too. We might just be able to witness something truly special built on the foundation of something most of us already love.
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