Michael B. Jordan carried the responsibility of reviving the Rocky film franchise when he was cast as the star of Creed. Now it appears the actor will have an even bigger role in Creed III.
During an interview with MTV News, Jordan's co-star Tessa Thompson said he will be directing the newest Creed installment.
"He is directing the next Creed," Thompson said when asked about Jordan and his new status as People's Sexiest Man Alive. "It's going to be ammo, I think, for me when he is engaging with me as a director. I'm just going to tell him to dial down the sexiness."
Creed III will be the 33-year-old's directorial debut. Rumors started to circulate that Jordan would take the reins following the completion of the 2018 sequel.
"I’ve heard things about a Creed 3. I think Drago is in it somehow," Ivan Drago actor Dolph Lundgren said in 2019. "I heard Michael B. Jordan wants to direct something, maybe he could direct it like Stallone and Rocky. I hope I’m in it."
Jordan's venture into directing comes after he solidified himself as a producer through his Outlier Society Productions. His company helped put together films like Just Mercy along with shows such as Netflix's Raising Dion. It will also have a hand in producing the upcoming Static Shock movie.
So far the plot of Creed III has been kept under wraps. Yet Rocky Balboa himself, Sylvester Stallone, revealed Creed II might be his "last rodeo" now that Jordan is the face of the franchise.
"This is probably my last rodeo, because what I thought happened—and has happened—I never expected," Stallone said in a video from the set. "I thought Rocky was over in 2006, and I was very happy with that. And then all of a sudden this young man presented himself and the whole story changed. It went on to a new generation, new problems, new adventures. And I couldn’t be happier, because as I step back, because my story has been told, there’s a whole new world that is going to be opening up for the audience, for this generation."
He concluded, "Thank you very much, [Creed II director] Steven [Caple Jr.], and definitely you, Michael, for making that possible. Now you have to carry the mantle."
