Trivia / Creed II

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• B-Team Sequel: Ryan Coogler didn't direct as he was busy with Black Panther (2018), though he did return as executive producer.
• Cast the Expert: As in the first film with its main antagonist, Viktor Drago is played by real-life heavyweight boxer Florian Munteanu. The now-retired Andre Ward returns in a brief showing as Danny "Stuntman" Wheeler, and Jacob "Stitch" Duran makes a third appearance as himself in the Rocky film franchise, standing in Creed's corner.
• The Cast Showoff: Tessa Thompson, who comes from a family of musicians and performs in a band, performs three songs in the film. In particular, "I Will Go to War" to present Adonis heading to the ring of the Moscow Olympic Stadium to face Viktor Drago at the end of the movie.
• Deleted Scene:
  • Rocky gives a eulogy at Spider Rico's funeral. It's implied that Rico learned to be a boxer at the same desert training grounds that Adonis would later train at.
  • Adonis greets locals at Max's Steaks, and discusses his accomplishments with Bianca.
  • Rocky trains child boxers at a gym.
  • A brief fight scene between Rocky Balboa and Ivan Drago was filmed, but omitted from the theatrical release. The scene would take place in the hospital by the security desk area. Both would exchange fists before immediately being broken up by security and Drago's crew.
  • After the end of the final fight, Adonis greets a defeated Viktor in the locker room and gives him words of encouragement. Ivan sees off Adonis and consoles his son, while Rocky and Ivan nod at each other, leaving on better terms.
• Dyeing for Your Art:
  • In order to get into the same weight class, Michael B. Jordan had to gain 25 pounds in muscle for his role, while Florian Munteanu had to lose 20 pounds. (Munteanu still ended up having 25 pounds on Jordan, however.)
  • Dolph Lundgren collaborated with director Steven Caple Jr. to change his physique and age the character of Drago to visually translate the poverty and suffering endured, as he colored his teeth yellow.
• Fake Russian: None of the main Russian characters are actually Russian; along with the fake Russians of Rocky IV (the Swedish Dolph Lundgren and the Danish Brigitte Nielsen playing Ivan and Ludmilla Drago respectively), Viktor Drago is played by the German (of Romanian descent) Florian Munteanu.
• Hide Your Pregnancy: Brigitte Nielsen (aged 54) was seven months pregnant when shooting her scenes, making it necessary to shoot around her bulging stomach. She gave birth to her fifth child and first daughter, Frida, exactly two weeks after the movie was wrapped up.
• Hostility on the Set: Rocky never has a scene in the film with Ludmilla Drago, reportedly due to continuing bad blood from Sylvester Stallone's and Brigitte Nielsen's divorce.
• The Other Darrin:
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub, Oscar Gomez voices Ivan Drago, replacing both the late Eduardo Borja from the first Mexican dub of Rocky IV and Oscar Flores from the third Mexican one (The second one was done in the U.S. by a Spanish-speaking studio in Los Angeles, CA)
  • The same goes in the Japanese dub, as Ivan Drago is voiced by Masaaki Itatori, instead of either Norio Wakamoto (TBS dub) or Akio Ōtsuka (TV Asahi dub).
• Recycled Script: Several plot beats are recycled from Rocky II, including Adonis becoming world champion, marrying his girlfriend, and the two having a child. That being said, the film does change up a few of said plot beats, having Adonis become world champion at the start of the movie rather than the end, and the drama over his child's birth revolving around his daughter being disabled (compared to Rocky II, where Rocky Jr. was mostly okay, but Adrian nearly died in childbirth and spent days in a coma).
  • And obviously, the inclusion of the Drago family, a member of which chases the title character's champion status, draws parallels with Rocky IV, again with some plot beats shaken up. In this film, rather than being the face of his nation and having access to state of the art equipment to train, Viktor has grown up in obscurity and poverty, having to rely on training methods not too dissimilar to Rocky. Also, while a Drago handily defeated a Creed in the film's first major fight, Viktor was disqualified for striking a downed Adonis, who retained his champion status. And most notably, whereas Rocky abided by Apollo's wishes and refused to throw in the towel even while the latter was being beaten to death by Ivan, here Ivan sacrifices his chance at redemption and glory by choosing his son's well-being.
  • Similar to Rocky III, this film features an overconfident and mentally unsound title character rushing into a fight against an upstart challenger who has been training their entire lives for the chance to take down the champ, and the first fight ends with the title character being soundly beaten by their challenger, who employs a ferocious fighting style designed to score a TKO in an early round. The rest of the film then revolves around training for the rematch, where the title character works to recover mentally from the defeat and then engaging in excruciating physical training to withstand the pounding they will take in the next match. Ultimately, the protagonist wins the rematch by enduring their challenger's blows and forcing them to go the distance, something the latter hasn't had to do before, and pound them into submission once they're exhausted.
• Role Reprise:
  • Dolph Lundgren reprises his role from Rocky IV as Ivan Drago, the brutal steroids-enhanced Russian champion who killed Apollo Creed during an exhibition boxing match and was later defeated by Rocky.
  • Brigitte Nielsen is also back as Ludmilla Drago.
  • Milo Ventimiglia is back from Rocky Balboa as Robert Balboa Jr.

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