EXCLUSIVE: Keenan Coogler and Zach Baylin Talks The Inspiration Behind Creed III

Writers Keenan Coogler and Zach Baylin opened up about their new movie, Creed III. The duo came together to write the third movie in the Creed franchise and the two are taking everything from their inspiration for the story to Michael B. Jordan below.

What was the inspiration for this story, and how did you tackle this chapter of Adonis’ story?

Bayline: “It was a very collaborative scriptwriting process. I think that the inspiration came from a lot of places. It came from talking to Michael [Jordan] about what the next chapter of Adonis’ life that he wanted to explore, and Bianca [Tessa Thmopson]. And it came from talking to Ryan [Coogler] about what was happening in all of our lives that we thought we could get out and really put into this movie.

Keenan and I had this pretty amazing collaboration where we got to really talk about what we thought was possible in a movie like this. How we could make it personal for everyone involved. And I think that getting to work, there are not that many franchises or films of this caliber where you get to work with these kind of actors and actually make a movie that’s about something. For me, that was the most exciting part, like all the exciting elements of the boxing and the inspirational story was gonna be there. But also these characters are so deep and dynamic, and we really got to explore a lot of things. Like, it’s pretty rare in a movie of this scale, I think.”

Keenan, you watched Ryan make the first Creed and now you’re writing the third installment of it. How does that feel?

“I used to make fun of him, ’cause I thought he was making the whole thing up. ‘Cause we shared a room at the time at my parents’ house. We shared a room at my parents’ house, and he was working on the script literally from the idea in his head, and he would talk about it, and then he would go out and have these telephone conversations with Sylvester Stallone. He would talk on the phone. He would go down the street, and you would just see him pacing up and down the street talking. And I thought he was making the entire thing up. ‘Cause, like, no way would Stallone even answer that phone call, right? Then I worked on the movie. So if you watch Creed I, I’m literally underneath the ring in pretty much all the shots. Ryan had us set up a little village that would be underneath the ring so that we wouldn’t have to sprint off camera every take. And that was me. I was underneath there watching these guys create this character. But the funnest part, honestly, has been watching the character of Adonis change hands.”

How so?

“The entire time everybody had implicated themselves in this character, they’re growing up with him in real time. It’s really interesting because I’ve been working with these two [Coogler & Jordan] for over 10 years now. And we’ve all sort of grown up with this character. So, the scenes get super-emotional because everybody’s implicated in them. When Adonis is struggling, it’s hard not to imagine where that came from. I really love that this character has always been equal parts Mike and Ryan. And Mike’s been a big brother to me from day one.

But to now sorta be tethered by this actual character that people respond to, it just makes it that much more fun to write the character. I’m a genre guy, so, I came in first day trying to pull Mike’s references out of him. I know he likes anime, but I know he’s not gonna always lead with that in these big, scary rooms. I was the one that was like, ‘No, tell him. This is from episode this of this.’ And we liked it, and we want to put this in the movie. I’m not getting off this Zoom until they know what episode of Dragon Ball Z we’re doing. I said to him the nuts are gonna run the nut house. We’re gonna do it our way.”

Creed III hits theaters this coming Friday, March 3.

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity