Why is Rocky not in Creed 3? For a long time, the long-running Rocky franchise was defined by Sylvester Stallone and his presence. Then Creed came along, and his character took a back seat to make way for Adonis Creed.
However, Sylvester Stallone will not be in the new movie Creed 3. That means that when the Creed 3 release date does roll around, fans will be watching the first Rocky movie in the franchise, not to star Rocky himself in some capacity. That’s a big deal and marks the start of a genuinely new era for the series. But why is Rocky not in Creed 3?
Why is Rocky not in Creed 3?
Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky will not be in Creed 3 for two main reasons: first, Stallone is not a fan of the direction of the franchise.
He has been outspoken in saying that he feels that his omission is a “regretful situation because I know what it could have been. It was taken in a direction that is quite different than I would’ve taken it.” In the same interview with THR, Stallone also said he didn’t appreciate the “dark space,” that Creed 3 was headed into.
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The second reason Stallone gives is that there’s simply no space for his character within the story of Creed 3, as he told The Independent. “What it was is Michael [B Jordan] is telling a story, highly personal, but there’s no room for me.”
So there are both in-universe and out-of-universe explanations for why Stallone’s Rocky will be absent from the sports movie: there’s neither space for him in the story, and he doesn’t like where the story’s going.
For more on the Creed series, check out our thoughts on how Dragon Ball Z can help the Creed movies, find out how to watch Creed 3, or take a look at our Creed 3 review. If that’s not enough, we’ve also picked out the best Michael B Jordan movies, and have taken a gaze into the future to dissect the Creed 4 release date.