Creed III star Michael B. Jordan opens up on anime influence in new sequel

Creed III director and lead actor Michael B. Jordan recently appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and spoke about the anime's influence in the upcoming movie and also about his appearance in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Creed III stars Michael B. Jordan as Adonis "Donnie" Creed, Tessa Thompson as Bianca Taylor, Jonathan Majors as Damian "Dame" Anderson, Wood Harris as Tony "Little Duke" Evers, Florian Munteanu as Viktor Drago and Phylicia Rashad as Mary Anne Creed.

Furthermore, Tony Bellew will reprise his role as "Pretty" Ricky Conlan from the first Creed film. Selenis Leyva, Thaddeus J. Mixson, Mila Davis-Kent, and Canelo Álvarez have also been cast in undisclosed roles.

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Michael B. Jordan has cited a major outside source for his inspiration for Creed III action sequences

The actor/director opened up on the experiences of acting and directing the film, and the regular challenges he faced, especially during the boxing scenes.

For help, he turned to other directors like Ryan Coogler and Jon Favreau for additional advice.

Jordan explained:

"It’s tough. You got a mouthpiece in sometimes, you got gloves. You’re always depending on so many people. Your team is everything. So, to be able to be in the middle of a boxing scene, honestly it’s sometimes easier because I can direct while I’m acting.

He continued:

If I need to move you upstage a little bit, I just move a little bit like this, and then I get the shot that I need."

Creed movies are part of the bigger Rocky universe. Jordan made every boxing match in the movie different from the others. He said that he drew inspiration from Japanese anime:

"It was a gift and a curse. There’s been eight other movies before me, and we’ve shot – you can shoot a boxing match so many different ways."

He continued:

"I think ‘cause I was kinda put in a corner, it forced me to be more creative and really think outside the box of how to make the fights different...and I had a huge Japanese anime influence on a lot of my fighters."

Some of the most popular animes about boxing include Hajime no Ippo, Ashita no Joe, Ganbare Genki, Slow Step, One Pound Gospel, Rokudenashi Blues, Ring ni Kakero 1, Nozomi Witches, and many more.

Creed III will take place several years after the events of Creed II.

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What is Creed III about?

The upcoming film is the third movie from the Creed franchise. The previous movies were released in 2015 and 2018.

Its official synopsis reads:

"After dominating the boxing world, Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) has been thriving in both his career and family life. When a childhood friend and former boxing prodigy, Damian (Jonathan Majors), resurfaces after serving a long sentence in prison, he is eager to prove that he deserves his shot in the ring. The face off between former friends is more than just a fight. To settle the score, Adonis must put his future on the line to battle Damian -- a fighter who has nothing to lose."

Irwin Winkler, Charles Winkler, William Chartoff, David Winkler, Ryan Coogler, Michael B. Jordan, Elizabeth Raposo, Jonathan Glickman, Sylvester Stallone serve as its producers, with the screenplay credited to Keenan Coogler and Zach Baylin.

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Creed III will be released in theaters on Friday, March 3, 2023.