Creed II Is All Punches, Drama, And Shirtless Michael B. Jordan

in case you listen closely enough, you could hear the faint sounds of retainers breaking in the distance soon following the release of the initial Creed II trailer. Shirtless Michael B. Jordan is back from Wakanda to prove his fighting skills were no fluke, soundtracked by Kendrick Lamar's "DNA."


Directed by Steven Caple Jr., The eighth installment in the Rocky franchise sees Adonis Creed (Jordan) grappling with the ghosts of his past as he faces the Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu), the son of the man who famously killed his father, Apollo, in Rocky IV. In the trailer, his mentor Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) and girlfriend Bianca (Tessa Thompson) both question his motivations for wanting to take on Viktor. Their worries are understandable considering it looks like Adonis has a little bit Creed to worry about now.


Creed II sees Jordan and Thompson finally reuniting immediately after their brief forays into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Unfortunately, Black Panther's director Ryan Coogler did not return to helm the spinoff he helped to make. On Variety's Playback podcast, Coogler shared why he didn't return to direct the Creed sequel and why emotional the opening film is for him.


"Creed was about my dad and me, so it's a movie that I find challenging to watch," Coogler mentioned. "It's complicated for me to even imagine it, I've got so several emotional ties to it, not to say, you know, how much I care about the people involved. I care deeply for Mike, certainly, deeply for Tessa, and I grew incredibly close with Sly in making that. These are people that I wanna visualize do well and win at all expenditures. There's timing, and that film, for whichever reason, it had to go any time it's going. I think it's a blessing that it's going, man."


Creed II hits theaters November 21.