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Creed 2 is coming back bigger and better than ever. For Adonis the stakes are higher this time around, fighting is nothing new to him, he had to fight for everything he’s got so far so it’s no surprise that he will have to fight even harder to keep it.

On today’s episode of Extra Butter with Xilla Valentine we take a deep dive into Creed II as we chat with Michael B Jordan, Tessa Thompson, Dolph Lundgren, and Florian Munteanu as well as director Steven Caple Jr, who was hand-picked by Ryan Coogler to take over the franchise.

In order to fully understand this story, you gotta go back to 1985 when Russian boxer Ivan Drago killed Adonis’s father Apollo Creed in a tragic match that stunned the world. The former heavyweight champion died on live tv after fighting Ivan against the wishes of trainer Rocky Balboa. Rocky had to get into the ring with Ivan to avenge his friend’s death, but after that loss Ivan loss everything back home in Russia and has trained his son Viktor to be bigger and better than he was in his prime. So the rise of Apollo’s son Adonis Johnson Creed to champion, Ivan feels like this is the perfect time for redemption in order to get back all that was lost.

Michael B Jordan gets to show off his acting ability in this movie by showing strength, emotion, athleticism and much more. He laughs, cries and fights all throughout this film. I talked to him about showing off his range. “It was incredible. This was the first time I’ve been able to do a sequel to any film that I’ve done before. I get to take this character to the next level, to show Adonis advance in his career and his relationship by really showing what black love really is. Giving him a family of his own, fatherhood something he never really knew how to do because he didn’t really have that growing up. We just wanted to challenge him in all aspects of life and see how he responds to it.”

The visuals for this film are off the hook, if you have seen the trailer you know there is a dope sequence when Adonis trains as Muhammad Ali trained by shadow boxing underwater. Steven told me, “We wanted to pay homage but also we did something that was new, which was shadowboxing underwater and then lift out of the water with Michael, and the camera then goes back under water. It’s real boxing stuff. Michael also had ankle weights attached to his body so he could stay under which was super dangerous but it helped keep him grounded.”

It’s an epic shot for an amazing movie filled with great fight sequences and a heartfelt story. Michael even took a punch to the chin when first-time actor Florian Munteanu got too wrapped up in his character and blacked out. Watch until the end of the video to hear that story.

Creed 2 is in theaters everywhere tomorrow.

Michael B Jordan & Tessa Thompson On Creed 2 Bodies, Black Love & More | Extra Butter  was originally published on globalgrind.com