There’s a new trailer out for the Rocky spinoff Creed, the film that dares to ask just how fair audiences are willing to let the Sylvestor Stallonaissance go. The movie reunites Fruitvale Station director Ryan Coogler with star Michael B. Jordan, who plays the father-issue-festooned son of the long dead Apollo Creed. Luckily for fans of the resolution of deep-seated family issues and feelings of abandonment via repeatedly battering someone else in the head, Sylverster Stallone is on hand to take Jordan under his wing, acting as the young fighter’s mumbling, puffy-faced Yoda.
Beyond Rocky’s mere presence in the trailer, there are a few other flashes of fanservice on display—Carl Weathers’ old American flag shorts make an appearance, and Jordan repeats Stallone’s big speech from Rocky Balboa, despite the fact that he delivered it in an almost empty alley, to a barely there Milo Ventimiglia. (Presumably, someone just off-camera was recording it on their phone, uploading the footage as the classic YouTube video “Shambling, Hairless Yeti Yells Platitudes At Son!!!”).
More intriguingly, the trailer also shows a scene of Jordan crying while Stallone sadly tells him something, followed shortly by a shot of a sick-looking Rocky watching a fight from underneath Burgess Meredith’s old hat. It’s hard to draw any complete conclusions from a few sparse images, but it definitely lends credence to earlier speculation that the film will see Rocky face off against those billion-time champions that no pair of boxing gloves is big enough to beat: terminal illness and death.
Creed opens (with arms wide, one hopes) on November 25.