‘Creed’ is a ‘Rocky’ Sequel, But What a Sequel it is

In the entertainment industry, what has worked well in the past almost certainly is apt to be repeated. In television, All in the Family begat Maude and Good Times. Cheers begat Frasier, JAG begat NCIS. So repetition of a winning formula is sure to click, right? Uh, not always. Hill Street Blues begat Beverly Hills Buntz and Rhoda,, which was an OK spinoff of the wonderful The Mary Tyler Moore Show, begat a certified disaster in Carlton Your Doorman. Putting a new twist on a classic original is and always has been a hit-or-miss proposition.

It’s much the same with movies. Few really good films are capable of being franchised for extended success as sequels, at least with any degree of quality control. One of the best horror movies of all time, The Exorcist, spawned one of the worst remakes ever, Exorcist II: The Heretic, which no doubt caused star Richard Burton embarrassment to his dying day. Despite that colossal failure, various filmmakers went to the well for three more sequels which all tilted far more to Burton’s bomb than director William Friedkin’s 1973 Academy Award-nominated masterwork.

Rocky, which was made fast (in 28 days) on a shoestring budget (just over $1 million) with a cast of little-known actors, is perhaps the most enduring surprise hit in movie history. It won three Academy Awards in 1976, including the big one, for Best Picture, and it turned its mumbling central figure, a down-on-his-luck Philadelphia heavyweight named Rocky Balboa, played to perfection by Sylvester Stallone, into the most iconic celluloid hero this side of James Bond.

The Rocky franchise presumably came to an end with a raft of favorable reviews for 2006’s Rocky Balboa (full disclosure: I had a brief speaking part in it), which Stallone -- by now a multimillionaire -- envisioned as a fitting final chapter for a character he created and with which he forever will be associated.

But Creed, which opened on Nov. 25, the 40th anniversary of the release of the film that began it all, not only has breathed fresh life into its aging protagonist (Stallone turns 70 on July 6, 2016), it has given a time-worn franchise an exciting new face (Michael B. Jordan as Apollo Creed’s illegitimate son, Adonis “Donnie” Creed), a mostly new cast of characters in front of and behind the camera, and a familiar setting (Philadelphia), which in its own way has undergone a dramatic transformation over these past 40 years.

Which is not to say Creed II, if there is indeed such a project on the drawing board, won’t crash and burn in much the same manner as Exorcist II: The Heretic. But based on the vision of director/co-writer Ryan Coogler and Jordan’s potential as a breakout star, there is more than enough reason to believe Creed can at least approximate the success of the previous Rocky films, but with appeal to a new generation of fans.

“Absolutely, without a doubt,” Stallone told Philadelphia Daily News film critic Gary Thompson when asked if Creed was apt to become the launch of a new series, rather than just an extension of a long-existing one. Upcoming films, he said, “will follow this young man’s journey through all the trials and tribulations that lay ahead.

“It’s a new day,” Stallone said. “And we will be back.”

Steven Rea, the film critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, gave Creed a four-star rating (the highest possible) and has even suggested that another boxing movie about another boxing underdog might do what the first Rocky did, which is to score an even more astounding upset in the reel world than Buster Douglas did in the real world, when as a 42-to-1 underdog he knocked out Mike Tyson to win the heavyweight championship in 1990. It’s not just that Rocky took the Best Picture Oscar over All the President’s Men and Taxi Driver; it’s that the movie was made at all. The Hollywood suits who determine which projects get green-lighted thought the script authored by Stallone might make a nice little movie on the cheap, but they wanted Ryan O’Neal to play the lead and, oh yeah, would Stallone please make the hero Irish-American and move the location to Boston? But Sly, who spent his teenage years in the Philly area, held his ground, insisting that he play Rocky, and, well, the rest is history.

But sometimes even that which is most familiar takes on a new perspective when viewed through a different set of eyes. Enter Coogler, a 29-year-old African-American director from Oakland, Calif., whose resume included only one previous feature film, 2013’s well-received Fruitvale Station. It turns out that Coogler and his late father loved all the previous Rocky movies and the son, who was a wide receiver at Sacramento State University, had been fascinated by the myriad sights and sounds in Philly when he visited the city while being recruited by the University of Pennsylvania. Coogler took his ideas for a reboot to Stallone, who initially resisted because he believed there was no more ground that could be plausibly covered.

But Coogler proved as persistent as Rocky was in his bouts with Apollo Creed and Ivan Drago, and eventually Stallone succumbed to the young director’s entreaties. The result is the most audience-involving boxing movie since Million Dollar Baby in 2004, which, like the original Rocky, took the Academy Award for Best Picture. Jordan not only has the six-pack abs you’d expect of an extremely fit light heavyweight, but his moves in the ring are more believable than what anyone might reasonably expect of an actor attempting to play a fighter. Adding a sheen of legitimacy to the boxing scenes are guest appearances by real-life fighters (but with fictional names) Gabriel Rosado, Andre Ward and, in the key role of light heavyweight champion “Pretty” Ricky Conlan, British cruiserweight Tony Bellew.

It is a curious thing that while boxing is now regarded by some as something of a niche sport, it remains the most dependable source of sports movies, in terms of quantity as well as quality. In 2009’s “The Ultimate Book of Sports Movies,” co-authored by Ray Didinger and Glen Macnow, boxing holds the lion’s share of places in the top 100 sports films of all time, as rated by Didinger and Macnow. Rocky is No. 1, with Raging Bull (3), Million Dollar Baby (12), Body and Soul (18), When We Were Kings (21), The Set-Up (25), Requiem for a Heavyweight (32), Hard Times (38), Cinderella Man (47), The Harder They Fall (54), Fat City (60), The Boxer (65), Champion (73) and Diggstown (90).

Boxing inclusions in the top 100 could have been even more extensive. Had the book come just a year later, 2010’s The Fighter, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won Best Supporting Actor Oscars for Christian Bale and Melissa Leo, would have been high on the list. And you could make a case for Gentleman Jim, Somebody Up There Likes Me, The Great White Hope, The Hurricane (despite its factual inaccuracies), The Champ (the 1931 original, with Wallace Beery) and, excuse me for thinking so, Rocky Balboa.

The sport of boxing has been in decline for years, Didinger and Macnow write. Too many sanctioning bodies, too many titles and too little star power have caused fans to drift away. But that has not stopped Hollywood from making movies about boxing. It has been a popular subject for more than a century (Thomas Edison filmed a James J. Corbett exhibition match in 1892) and it is likely to remain so whether anybody can name the current heavyweight champion or not.

For one thing, it is the easiest sport to film. There are two fighters, face to face, in a confined space. It is not like nine players spread out on a baseball diamond or 22 men in helmets and pads sprawling across a football field. For the purposes of lighting and camera placement, a boxing ring is the perfect stage. It makes for a quicker and therefore cheaper shoot.

But more than that, boxing lends itself to melodrama. It is about an individual, not a team, so the writer can focus on the storyline. There is also the backdrop of vengeful mobsters, double-crossing managers and other shady characters that populate the sport and provide a wealth of material for movies.

All true, which is why, if you enjoy Creed, you can expect Adonis to lace up the gloves again in the not-too-distant future.

Fighter in a different racket

Tennis, generally thought of a sport for the well-to-do and with its expectation of genteel conduct from participants and spectators alike, might be thought of as the polar opposite of rowdy boxing. But then the tennis boom of the 1970s came along, with its most popular and marketable performer playing the game in much the same manner that fighter goes about his business in the ring.

Jimmy Connors is my all-time favorite tennis player, and it wasn’t difficult for me to imagine him as sort of the undisputed middleweight champion of his game. He played with passion, not bothering to conceal his emotions, and fans were drawn to his desire to always drill the ball hard, low and flat for winners instead of waiting for the other guy to make a mistake by hitting long, wide or into the net.

In Connors’ autobiography, “The Outsider,” he reveals himself to be Jake LaMotta with a two-fisted backhand. Tennis, he claims, “is boxing at 90 feet. Throwing blows at each other until there’s only one man left standing.” He talks about getting his “Tiger Juices” flowing during the course of a match, calling to mind that “Eye of the Tiger” theme from Rocky II.

Connors’ father, Jim Sr., trained him like a boxer and his grandfather once sparred with Joe Louis. His promoter/manager, Bill Riordan, had financial interests in several prizefighters and “had spent his youth ringside at Madison Square Garden, soaking up the showbiz atmosphere. Boxing had a big influence on his vision for the future of tennis.”

The tennis boom of the ’70s has largely gone bust, and I have to believe that is in no small part because there is no one like Jimmy Connors to stir the pot on the male side. Jimbo was to his sport what Muhammad Ali and Roberto Duran were to theirs: charismatic, confrontational and competitors at the highest level.

Bernard Fernandez, a five-term president of the Boxing Writers Association of America, received the Nat Fleischer Award from the BWAA in April 1999 for lifetime achievement and was inducted into the Pennsylvania Boxing Hall of Fame in 2005, as well as the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame in 2013. The New Orleans-born sports writer has worked in the industry since 1969 and pens a weekly column on the Sweet Science for Sherdog.com.