Cosmo DeNicola, a member of the Philadelphia Film Office Advisory Board, is excited for the release of 'Creed', the Rocky movie for the new generation, this Thanksgiving.
"Rocky has a special place in the hearts of all Philadelphians and to visitors of our great city," explained DeNicola. "My hope is that this movie will help our younger generation to share in the love for Rocky and to continue a great legacy for many more years to come."
The Philadelphia Film Office was instrumental in negotiating with the film production team to include as much of Philadelphia as possible by filming in the city.
The excerpt below was originally posted as "Michael B. Jordan Gives Millennials Their ‘Rocky’ With ‘Creed’" By Cara Buckley, The New York Times, 10/28/15
MIAMI BEACH — There came a time not long ago when the actor Michael B. Jordan realized he had to stop dying on screen, because it was killing his mom.
In his breakout role as a teenage drug dealer in “The Wire,” Mr. Jordan’s character was shot; in the movie “Blackout,” he was stabbed; in “Chronicle,” struck by lightning; and in the HBO film “Red Tails,” about the Tuskegee Airmen, gunned down in a warplane. This was followed by his star turn in “Fruitvale Station,” the 2013 picture that recreated the last day of Oscar Grant III, an unarmed young black man shot to death by a white transit police officer on an Oakland, Calif., train platform early one New Year’s Day.
The fact that Mr. Jordan’s mother, Donna, a high school guidance counselor and artist, knew in advance about the fates of each character did nothing to allay her grief. Whether sitting alongside her son at premieres or watching him go through death throes on TV at home, she would end up in tears.
“Oh she knows it’s coming, it doesn’t matter, it’s uncontrollable sobs,” Mr. Jordan, who is 28, said during a recent interview at the Soho Beach House here. “And it just weighed on me after a while. I’m like: ‘Guys, I’m not dying anymore. I can’t do it.’ ”
With his latest film, “Creed,” Mr. Jordan not only made good on his vow, but he also helped bring back a franchise. He plays an aspiring fighter named Adonis Johnson, the heretofore unknown son of the boxer Apollo Creed. Adonis journeys to Philadelphia to be trained by Rocky Balboa, played by — who else? — Sylvester Stallone.
The film again paired Mr. Jordan with Ryan Coogler, the director of “Fruitvale Station,” who in turn conceived of “Creed” as a deeply personal homage to his sickly father. Co-starring Tessa Thompson, of “Dear White People” and “Selma,” as Mr. Jordan’s love interest, “Creed” explores a different side of Philadelphia than the Rocky films do. While the story largely centers on the father-and-son-like bond between Adonis and an ailing Rocky, it is told through the eyes of young black millennials, showcasing the city’s hip-hop and dirt bike scenes.
Opening Nov. 25, the film and its attendant promotional duties come at a good time for Mr. Jordan. He is still smarting from the crash and burn this past summer of “Fantastic Four,” in which he played his first superhero, Human Torch.
“It was tough, because it was the first time I ever went through that,” Mr. Jordan said of that film’s critical and box-office drubbing, “Some things are out of your control, even if you show up and give everything you’ve got, even if you give 110 percent.”
Mr. Jordan, who was born in California and raised in New Jersey, was in Miami Beach to promote “Creed” at the Revolt Music Conference, a three-day event that has been described as a “hip-hop Comic-Con” and is affiliated with Sean Combs’s television channel. Mr. Jordan had the casual-slash-expensive look nailed, wearing a black T-shirt that hugged his chiseled biceps, jeans, and pristine black and gray Nike high tops, with diamond studs in his ears. Easygoing, handsome and beguilingly boyish, with doe-like eyes, he unsurprisingly has countless, often possessive female fans.
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