Michael B. Jordan is working on a Creed anime, Rocky spinoffs

Creed III, the third installment in the Michael B. Jordan-led spinoff series of the Rocky franchise, opened to a spectacular premiere earlier this month; earning nearly $59 million in the United States and over $100 million internationally, more than any previous Rocky-related movie to date.

That success has not gone without notice. Deadline reported on Thursday that Amazon, which recently acquired MGM, the company behind the Creed series, is reportedly in talks with Jordan about the possibility of expanding the universe of Rocky/Creed with other related projects, including — and predictably — an anime series.

Those familiar with Jordan’s career will note that this is not the first time that the actor-director has been involved in an animated series. From 2019 to 2021, he served as an executive producer and voice actor for the sci-fi mecha series Gen:Lock. He’s also provided vocal and motion-capture performances for the animated sci-fi anthology series Love, Death & Robots.

The future of the RCEU (or ‘Rocky-Creed Extended Universe’) doesn’t just stop with Adonis Creed, however. The report suggests a project centered around Adonis’ daughter Amara, played by deaf actress Mila Davis-Kent, is just one idea emerging from quick development. And as was announced in July 2022, a spinoff movie based on Rocky Balboa’s former Russian nemesis Ivan Drago is also in the works at MGM, with a script written by Robert Lawton (Sex & Sushi, Crave). While one can imagine a Drago offshoot being reworked into a series (à la 2018’s Cobra Kai), Deadline notes that the intention remains to see the project materialize as a movie, though only the script has yet been commissioned.

With all this talk about the franchise expansion of Creed spin off franchise, the obvious question now concerns the future of the larger Rocky franchise and whether or not series creator and former star Sylvester Stallone will have any part in the series going forward either on or off-screen. According to a report published by Variety on March 3, Stallone chose not to appear in Creed III — the first time in nine films and 47 years he has not appeared in a Rocky-related project — due to his objections to the film’s creative direction and his ongoing acrimonious relationship with the franchise’ longtime producer Irwin Winkler.

Be that as it may, at the very least we can hold out hope for the possibility of seeing Adonis Creed shadow-clone-jutsu-boxing his way onto screens sometime in the near-future.