LAS VEGAS: When director Ryan Coogler approached Sylvester Stallone about making another Rocky movie, Stallone thought he was insane.
The creator of the Rocky saga told the CinemaCon audience on Tuesday that the Rocky journey had ended.
Stallone soon realised that Coogler’s idea for Creed was something else entirely.
“It’s the beginning of a new journey,” he said of the tale of Apollo Creed’s son, Adonis, who is played by Michael B Jordan.
The character of Apollo Creed (played by Carl Weathers) died in the ring in 1985’s Rocky IV.
Theatre owners at the annual conference for exhibitors got a first look at a trailer for the film as a part of Warner Bros presentation of their film slate through 2016.
In Creed, Rocky Balboa (Stallone) comes out of retirement to train Adonis. Coogler said the idea came from his relationship with his father, who was a Rocky fan.
Warner Bros pummelled exhibitors with trailer after trailer of its extensive slate, trotting out stars like Reese Witherspoon, Sofia Vergara and Channing Tatum to preview films like Hot Pursuit, Magic Mike XXL, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
And Warner Bros had a few surprises in store. One of the more notable previews showed a first look at a nearly unrecognisable Johnny Depp as the notorious gangster Whitey Bulger in the film Black Mass. With thinning blond hair slicked back, disarming greyish blue eyes and speckled, pink skin, Depp is a menacing presence in the generation-spanning story about the alliance between Bulger and the FBI.
Warner Bros also showed the first preview of Point Break, a modern reimagining of Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 surfer criminals cult classic.
The update is a film for the X-Games generation. Starring Luke Bracey and Edgar Ramirez, the criminals aren’t just surfers this time – they’re into extreme sports of all kinds.
In one sequence, we see a group jump off a mountain wearing only wingsuits. They fly through narrow mountain crevices for minutes.
And yet, for as fake and videogame-like as it might look on the screen, the entire stunt was real, the audience learnt. – AP