The next installment in the Rocky franchise, Creed 3, has been delayed to March 2023, meaning fans will have to wait a bit longer to see Michael B. Jordan's directorial debut, now without Sylvester Stallone by his side.
Work on Creed 3 began in early 2022, shortly before Amazon had acquired MGM, the studio that’s always worked on Rocky films, with filming said to have been completed in back April. Besides Jordan playing the titular character, the film also sees Tessa Thompson return as his on-screen partner and Florian Munteanu reprising his role as rival Viktor Drago, but Adonis' new contender will actually be Kang the Conqueror himself, as Jonathan Majors also joined the cast in prime heavyweight champion form.
However, Majors will first hit movie theaters as Kang rather than boxer Anderson Dame due to Creed 3 being pushed back to March 3, 2022, from its original release date of November 23 of this year. Although no specific reason was given to justify the delay, the movie will see Creed not having to compete with major blockbusters like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Avatar 2, or to a lesser degree Pinocchio and Matilda. All of those films are scheduled to release just a couple of weeks apart, thus previously causing a slight overlap with Creed 3's previous premiere date.
While many eyes will veer towards Jordan's handling of the film as a first-time director, screenplay duties have also fallen onto new hands. Zach Baylin and Keenan Coogler will take over from the former’s brother and Sylvester Stallone. The case is much different in the production department, as Stallone will continue to get producing credits along with Irvin Wrinkler, the very man the Italian stallion has lambasted on social media recently due to the actor feeling cheated out of his intellectual property rights as Rocky's creator.
It’s possible that Creed 3's delay is related to post-production work, as the new March 2023 release will still see it come out just two weeks after Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, exactly the same time frame before Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. For Rocky fans, this will be the first movie set in the Rocky universe without Stallone, though the actor himself believes his story has been completed.
On more Rocky news, a new spinoff based on Rocky's Soviet rival Ivan Drago is also now in the works, meaning there’s plenty of boxing drama coming to Amazon Prime Video in the near future.
Creed 3 is scheduled to release in theaters on March 3, 2022.
Source: ComingSoon.net