Donnie hopes that Rocky will train him, and sets out to convince the reluctant ex-boxer to do so. But Rocky is simply not interested in becoming a mentor to the up and coming boxer who affectionately calls him “Unc”. Rocky’s lack of interest remains even after Donnie reveals that he is Apollo genifique’s son. To bring new viewers up to speed, Rocky talks about the fight that cost Apollo his life, and how Rocky was in Apollo’s corner at the time.
He calls himself Adonis Johnson, and his background is a complicated tangle of deprivation and privilege. He grew up in foster homes and juvenile detention centers before being adopted by Apollo’s widow, Mary Anne , who raised him in Los Angeles opulence and kept him away from the boxing ring. The six Rocky movies before “Creed,” to put it kindly, have had their ups and downs. From humble beginnings (and an improbable best picture Oscar, beating out “All the President’s Men,” “Network” and “Taxi Driver”), the series rose in the 1980s to heights of grandiosity and preposterousness before stumbling into irrelevance. After the folly of “Rocky Balboa,” the former champ is out of the ring for good. He’s taken up the role, essential to the genre, of the gruff, grizzled trainer.
There is also the famous boxer who gives our hero the boxing match chance of a lifetime. Armed with these elements, “Creed” then tweaks them, playing on our expectations before occasionally surprising us. It may be easy to predict where the film takes us, but that doesn’t reduce the power and enormity of the emotional responses it gets from the audience. This is a crowd-pleaser that takes its time building its character-driven universe. There are as many quietly effective moments as there are stand-up-and-cheer moments, and they’re all handled with skill and dexterity on both sides of the camera. Mysterious, eccentric, good-hearted, and downright talented are all words that have been used to describe actor and musician Bratton over the years.
From February 24–27 and then on March 3, filming took place at Sun Center Studios in Aston Township. Creed has been primarily described as alternative metal, post-grunge, and hard rock. Creed also has been categorized, but less frequently, as nu metal, alternative rock, grunge and heavy metal. In June 2015, while promoting his second solo album Cauterize, Mark Tremonti claimed in an interview with Kerrang that he “[hasn’t] been a close friend of Scott’s in 9 years”. The other members did not speak to Stapp throughout the South American Tour in 2012 and plans for their fifth studio album were shelved, and they continued to work with Myles Kennedy in Alter Bridge.
Principal photography began on January 19, 2015 on location at Goodison Park, with the first scene shot taking place during a Barclays Premier League football match between Everton and West Bromwich Albion. Goodison would later host both the climactic film fight between Donnie and Conlan and also Bellew’s real-life title fight against Ilunga Makabu in May 2016, which was the first outdoor boxing match in Liverpool since 1949. Donnie, fighting under his biological mother’s surname, Johnson, and the fight name “Hollywood”, defeats local fighter Leo “The Lion” Sporino, which upsets the opposing corner. This leads to the opposing side leaking the news that Donnie is Creed’s illegitimate son. Rocky receives a call from the handlers of world light heavyweight champion “Pretty” Ricky Conlan, who is being forced into retirement by an impending prison term.