Creed II

Creed II is a 2018 American sports drama film directed by Steven Caple Jr. from a screenplay by Juel Taylor and Sylvester Stallone. It is the sequel to Creed (2015), and the eighth installment in the Rocky franchise. It stars Michael B. Jordan, Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Wood Harris, Florian Munteanu, Phylicia Rashad, and Dolph Lundgren. In the film, under the continued tutelage of Rocky Balboa (Stallone), Adonis Creed (Jordan) faces off against Viktor Drago (Munteanu), the son of Ivan Drago (Lundgren), who became responsible for the death of Adonis' father Apollo Creed thirty-three years earlier. A Creed sequel was confirmed in January 2016, but was delayed because Creed director Ryan Coogler and Jordan faced scheduling conflicts due to their involvement in Black Panther (2018). Coogler was originally replaced by Stallone, who completed the screenplay by July 2017, but he was replaced by Caple that December, with Coogler instead serving as an executive producer. The rest of the cast, including the returns of Thompson, Rashad, and Lundgren, was confirmed by March 2018. Principal photography lasted from March to June, primarily on location in Philadelphia. Creed II premiered on November 14, 2018, at the Lincoln Center in New York City and was released in the United States by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on November 21. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the performances (particularly those of Stallone, Jordan, and Lundgren), character development, and Caple's direction, while noting its predictability. It was also a commercial success, grossing $214.2 million worldwide. The film marked Stallone's final appearance in the series as Rocky Balboa, as the former confirmed in Instagram that he set the latter into retirement. It was also his only film in the series in which he served as a co-writer with other people, after serving as sole writer to the original...