This March, Michael B. Jordan is back in the boxing ring in Creed III, where his character Adonis “Donnie” Creed has to face a new foe that’s tied to his past. Watch the trailer for Creed III below:

Before the new movie arrives on the big screen this week, here are a few facts about Creed III that you might want to know about!

1. Adonis Creed will have to fight a childhood friend.

As revealed in the trailer, the third film follows Adonis Creed as he reconnects with his childhood friend, the former boxing prodigy Damian– played by Jonathan Majors– who just got out of prison. But soon, Damian becomes uncontrollable and becomes a force to be reckoned with in the boxing ring.

With Damian threatening to go for everything that he has, Adonis must face the friend from his past and settle their scores in a high-stakes boxing match.

“Jonathan Majors is incredible,” Jordan shared about his co-star via Collider. “We’re very blessed and lucky to have him be a part of this story. For me, as a director, just to have that running mate and partner made all the difference in the world. He’s extremely talented. The world is finding out, daily, how incredible this man is and the work that he does is finally getting the props that it’s due.”

2. Michael B. Jordan makes his directorial debut with Creed III.

While the first Creed film was directed by Black Panther’s Ryan Coogler and the first sequel by Steven Caple Jr. who will also helm this year’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, the third installment to the franchise will now be directed by its lead star Michael B. Jordan.

“Talking with Denzel [Washington] and Bradley Cooper and others who have directed themselves, they told me you have to find your groove and your pace with your first AD and actors,” Michael B. Jordan shared in an interview with Empire. “But it’s also like having a superpower: within your performance, you can also direct. It saves some time in some areas, because you get a chance to self-correct in the moment. So that’s a liberating experience to have. It became fun after a while.”

3. Creed III was influenced by the anime Hajime No Ippo.

Jordan revealed that as the director of the latest Creed film, he pulled some inspiration from anime, specifically the popular boxing anime Hajime No Ippo.

“With boxing anime like Hajime no Ippo, I really love the inner dialogue of what’s going on and happening in the ring from the characters,” Jordan revealed in an interview with Total Film.

“I had a huge Japanese anime influence on a lot of my fights. I’m an anime nerd,” the director-slash-actor also shared during his interview on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

4. Rocky will not return for the third movie.

The Creed franchise branched off from the iconic Rocky films, but while the legendary movie boxer has been with Donnie’s side in the first two films, Sylvester Stallone has confirmed that he will not return for its third installment.

“That’s a regretful situation because I know what it could have been. It was taken in a direction that is quite different than I would’ve taken it,” Stallone told The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s a different philosophy — Irwin Winkler’s and Michael B. Jordan’s. I wish them well, but I’m much more of a sentimentalist. I like my heroes getting beat up, but I just don’t want them going into that dark space. I just feel people have enough darkness.”

5. Jordan on the importance of inclusivity in the film.

While Rocky is not in the third film, we will see Tessa Thompson reprise her role as Bianca, further expanding on the story of Bianca and Adonis as they raise their deaf daughter Amara, played by Mila Davis-Kent, amidst the challenges in Creed’s career. 

In a press conference, Michael B. Jordan talked about representation in the franchise through these characters: “Naturally, it was the right evolution of the Creed family. Dealing with ASL and Bianca’s character, since Creed I, and then having that evolve into her becoming a mother and the possibility of our child being hard of hearing, and then ultimately ending up being deaf, and seeing how that family evolves and grows, and how they deal with that obstacle and turn it into a superpower.

“It’s a community of people that doesn’t really get representation as much as they should, and we used this as opportunity to do that. Mila Davis-Kent is amazing. She’s deaf and learning ASL, and normalizing it was a really big deal for us. Hopefully, in watching this movie, you feel that,” the actor added.

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Creed III is coming to cinemas this Wednesday, March 1, 2023. Book your seats in advance and buy your tickets here.