Is Sylvester Stallone in ‘Creed III’?

‘Creed III’ hits theaters on March 3, with the latest instalment pitting Michael B. Jordan’s character of Adonis “Donnie” Creed against a former childhood friend, Damian “Dame” Anderson, played by Jonathan Majors.

Although the film picks up after the events of 2018s ‘Creed II’, fans of the series will notice a big change when it comes to the cast.

Is Sylvester Stallone in ‘Creed III’?

For the first time in any movie associated with the ‘Rocky’ franchise, Sylvester Stallone will not be playing the infamous Rocky Balboa.

Stallone played a prominent role in the first two movies of the ‘Creed’ franchise as Adonis Creed’s trainer. His performance in 2015′s ‘Creed’ even earned him his first Golden Globe Award, as well as a third Academy Award nomination.

His absence is in part due to the involvement of producer Irwin Winkler.

“You can’t make peace with someone who’s been so, so nefarious, in my opinion,” he told Men’s Health back in November.

Stallone has zero ownership of the ‘Rocky’ franchise after selling the rights to Winkler back in 1976. He most recently criticized Winkler for developing a spinoff based on Dolph Lundgren’s character Ivan Drago without his knowledge.

As a result Stallone called Winkler a “parasite” who is “picking clean the bones of another wonderful character I created.”

Stallone has gone so far as to say he won’t watch ‘Creed III’ due to Winkler’s involvement, while lamenting the direction the franchise is heading in.

“That’s a regretful situation because I know what it could have been,” Stallone told the Hollywood Reporter. “It was taken in a direction that is quite different than I would’ve taken it.

“It’s a different philosophy, Irwin Winkler’s and Michael B. Jordan’s. I wish them well, but I’m much more of a sentimentalist. I like my heroes getting beat up, but I just don’t want them going into that dark space. I just feel people have enough darkness.”

Stallone open to a return

Although Rocky doesn’t appear in the movie, Stallone did make it clear that he would be open to returning to the franchise in the future.

“What it was is Michael is telling a story, highly personal, but there’s no room for me. In other words, it’s about his [character Adonis Creed’s] family, about his dilemma, and about his journey that has nothing to do with boxing,” he told the Independent.

“If there’s a four that comes out and there’s this camaraderie, say father and son-ness, like I become the Mickey character, which I had become, then yeah.”