Lately, Sylvester Stallone’s been following in the footsteps of the action stars who followed in his, filling his social media with hints at his new projects, a la Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel. In early July, the Rocky franchise director shared some images of his big match with Dolph Lundgren as Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. The stills were followed by a respectable Photoshop job that replaced Rocky Balboa with Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan), suggesting the Soviet science project would find his way into these sequel series. Stallone’s latest Instagram tease is a bit more direct, featuring images of the handwritten script for Creed II (or Creed 2, we’re not sure how that’s going to shake out) with a “Drago” hashtag.
Since a hashtag with your (character’s) name is basically a contract, we can safely assume Lundgren’s started eating his daily spinach in preparation for the role. There’s no word on when Creed II will begin filming, but it has a tentative release date set for 2018. With director Ryan Coogler and star Michael B. Jordan busy with Black Panther, it could be a while. But it’s not like the Russia angle will become any less pertinent.