Sylvester Stallone admitted he wasn’t eager to sign up for “Creed” when the concept was first pitched, as he didn’t like Ryan Coogler’s planned character arc for Rocky Balboa.
Stallone opened up about his initial hesitation for the “Rocky” spinoff film during an interview with “GQ,” published Thursday, where he confessed that he wasn’t “comfortable” with the movie at first.
“I dodged that bullet for two years, three years,” Stallone recalled. “And Ryan Coogler was very persistent, kept pushing it. And we had the same agent, but I didn’t want to do it, because the way he had written it, Rocky dies. He gets Lou Gehrig’s disease [also known as ALS].”
Per Stallone, he couldn’t co-sign this plot, given he felt the arc would “bum the audience out completely.”
Ultimately, Coogler and co-screenwriter Aaron Covington had Rocky battle Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma — which the beloved boxer did not die from in the movie.
“So once we got over that, I said, okay, we’ll give it a shot,” Stallone added. “And it was a lot of dramatic acting in that, ’cause I couldn’t use my body. I’m not fighting. So that was a good challenge. And it turned out pretty well.”
Stallone, who wrote all six movies in the “Rocky” franchise, and directed four of them, went on to win a Golden Globe for his work in “Creed.” He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the 88th Academy Awards, too.
Stallone also had plenty of praise for “Creed” star Michael B. Jordan, noting they were both “so psychologically invested” in the movie. Jordan has gone on to star in two additional “Creed” movies, including 2018’s “Creed II” and 2023’s “Creed III.”
He’s set to star and direct “Creed IV,” however, there’s currently no release date for the film.
Watch Stallone’s full “GQ” interview above.
