Rambo III (1988)

This is the third film in the highly successful Rambo series, starring Sylvester Stallone

Summary

-Former Vietnam vet John Rambo leaves a peaceful Buddhist monastery in southeast Asia to rescue his former mentor from Russian commandos in Afghanistan

Cast

-Sylvester Stallone: Rambo

-Richard Crenna: Col. Sam Trautman

-Marc de Jonge: Zaysen

-Kurtwood Smith: Griggs

-Spyros Fokas: Masoud

-Sasson Gabay: Mousa

-Doudi Shoua: Hamid

-Marcus Gilbert: Tomask

-Alon Aboutboul: Nissem

Did You Know?

-Throughout the movie, if you look closely, you can see scars on Rambo's body. Such as the scar on his right arm from 1982's First Blood, which was caused by falling through the trees. Or the small scar on his right cheek, caused by a heated knife scraping his face in 1985's Rambo: First Blood Pt. II

-The last film in the Rambo series to star Richard Crenna as Col. Sam Trautman. He died on 1/17/2003 before a fourth film could be made. The 2008 film Rambo is dedicated to him in memory

-One scene shows Rambo playing a sort of polo-like game on horseback. In real life, Sylvester Stallone has experience riding horses. He's been riding horses since he was a child and even competed in polo matches starting at age 11. The game he plays is a popular game all across southern Asia called buzkashi

-Masoud (Spyros Fokas) is a reference to a real life figure named Ahmad Shah Masoud, a leader in the Afghan resistance against Russia, the minister of defense in Afghanistan and a leader in the resistance against the Taliban regime

-At the monks temple in Thailand, where Col. Trautman finds Rambo, it was a real temple in Thailand undergoing renovations. Director Peter McDonald stated that many of the monks there were not actors in costume, but actual monks from that temple. They were paid to appear as extras. He went on to say that he was delighted to give money to people who really needed it, as opposed to people who had too much of it

-Rambo is seen wearing the green charm necklace Co Bao from Rambo: First Blood Pt. II was wearing, that he put on after she died. In this film, he gives the necklace to Hamid before leaving Afghanistan

Tulsa King (2022-)

This relatively new TV show stars Sylvester Stallone as a former New York mafioso exiled from New York and force to set up shop in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The show is still up and running, which is why it says 2022- up top

Summary

-After serving a 25 year prison sentence, Dwight "The General" Manfredi, a Mafia capo, is exiled to Tulsa, Oklahoma

Cast

-Sylvester Stallone: Dwight "The General" Manfredi

-Martin Starr: Bodhi

-Jay Will: Tyson Mitchell

-Garrett Hedlund: Mitch Keller

-Dana Delany: Margaret Devereaux

-Chris Caldovino: Dennis "Goodie" Carangi

-McKenna Quigley Harrington: Grace

-Vincent Piazza: Vince Antonacci

-Annabella Sciorra: Joanne Manfredi

-Dashiell Connery: Clint

-Tatiana Zappardino: Tina Manfredi

-Frank Grillo: Bill Bevilaqua

-Dominick Lombardozzi: Charles "Chickie" Invernizzi

-Ritchie Coster: Caolan Waltrip

-Scarlet Rose Stallone: Spencer

Did You Know?

-This is Sylvester Stallone's first lead role in a television series

-Out of all the filming locations he's ever been to, Sylvester Stallone described Tulsa, Oklahoma, with the dusty weather, the temperatures hovering between 103 degrees-111 degrees, as being "By-far, the roughest" filming location he's ever experienced

-Ritchie Coster kept speaking in what he described as his character's terrible Irish accent for fear of losing it if he stopped speaking

-Dwight's nickname is Cinque Stelle, which is five stars in Italian. It also means Five Star General, the rank of the man who gave him his name, Dwight D. Eisenhower

-The character Spencer is played by Sylvester Stallone's real life daughter Scarlet Rose Stallone

-Most of the series was filmed in Oklahoma City, not Tulsa

-Ironically, Chris Caldovino and Vincent Piazza appeared in another TV show about mobsters. Boardwalk Empire on HBO. Chris played Tonino Luciano and Vincent played "Lucky" Luciano

Chris Caldovino

Vincent Piazza

-Vincent Piazza, Max Casella and Annabella Sciorra also appeared together on the HBO TV show The Sopranos. Vincent Piazza played a character named Hernan O'Brien. Max Casella played a character named Benny Fazio. Annabella Sciorra played a character named Gloria Trillo, a Mercedes car dealership employee and mistress of Tony Soprano

Vincent Piazza, The Sopranos

Max Casella, The Sopranos

Annabella Sciorra, The Sopranos

-This series helped Annabella Sciorra get her career back on track after it was revealed that Harvey Weinstein tried to destroy her career because she refused to sleep with him

Creed II (2018)

This is a sequel to the 2015 film of the same name

Summary

-With former boxing champion Rocky Balboa acting as his coach, Adonis Johnson, the son of late boxing legend Apollo Creed, takes on Viktor Drago, the son of former Russian boxing champion Ivan Drago

Cast

-Michael B. Jordan: Adonis Johnson

-Sylvester Stallone: Rocky Balboa

-Tessa Thompson: Bianca

-Phylicia Rashad: Mary Anne Creed

-Dolph Lundgren: Ivan Drago

-Florian Munteanu: Viktor Drago

-Russell Hornsby: Buddy Marcelle

-Wood Harris: Tony "Little Duke" Burton

-Mile Ventimiglia: Robert Balboa

-Robbie Johns: Logan Balboa

-Andre Ward: Danny "The Stuntman" Wheeler

-Brigitte Nielsen: Ludmilla Drago

Did You Know?

-This is the fifth film to feature two turtles named Cuff and Link. In real life, they are Sylvester Stallone's pets and have been for nearly 50 years

-Rocky is two years old than Mickey, the man who coached Rocky in the original 1976 film

-Just like the 1985 film Rocky IV, none of the Russian characters are played by actual Russian-born people. Dolph Lundgren, who plays Ivan Drago, is Swedish. Brigitte Nielsen, who plays Ludmilla, is Danish and Florian Munteanu, who plays Viktor Drago is German-Romanian

-Dolph Lundgren worked with director Steven Caple Jr to change his appearance and visibly age the character Ivan Drago. He did this to show the poverty and suffering the character had experienced

-Brigitte Nielsen is actually an ex-wife of Sylvester Stallone. They were engaged during the filming of Rocky IV, married after the premier and divorced two years later

-The search for the perfect person to play Viktor Drago took several months and trips around the world. The production crew met with several comedians and athletes who were also disciples of martial arts, kickboxing, boxing and American football. After searching through hundreds of photos, the right man had been found. German-Romanian boxer Florian Munteanu, known as "Big Nasty" was chosen

-When shooting her scenes, Brigitte Nielsen was 7 months pregnant. Filming was made to shoot around her ever increasing stomach. She gave birth to her fifth child, but first daughter, who she named Frida, exactly two weeks after filming concluded

-The film crew, Sylvester Stallone, Michael B. Jordan and Steven Caple Jr spent ten weeks filming in and around Philadelphia and then filmed the desert scenes in Deming, New Mexico

-This was filmed during the Anthony Joshua v. Joseph Parker fight in Wales on 03/31/2018

-Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren trained just as hard as the people they were coaching in the film, just to make sure they were in shape just like Adonis Creed and Viktor Drago

-One of the people fighting hard to get the role of Viktor Drago was UFC fighter Sage Northcutt

-The fight between Adonis Creed and Danny "The Stuntman" Wheeler took place at the newer version of MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Ironically, in the fight between Apollo Creed and Ivan Drago, that fight took place at the old MGM Grand, now Bally's, in Vegas

-In both this film and Rocky IV, Adonis gets his ribs broken by Viktor Drago just as Rocky got his ribs broken from Ivan Drago

-This film does not begin with recap of the final fight scene, like in Rocky Balboa and Creed

-In order to be seen as a credible fighter on screen, Michael B. Jordan underwent a strict diet and trained 2-3 times a day

-Michael B. Jordan wanted coach Patrice "Boogie" Harris to train him like a real boxer so he can develop these skills and develop his speed and coordination

-In this film, Bianca is suffering from progressive hearing loss while her daughter Amara is totally deaf. It's very rare for someone with progressive hearing loss to create a totally deaf child with a partner who has no hearing problems themselves. In this case, Adonis Creed

-During the 1st weigh-in, Ivan Drago tells Adonis "You're not as big as your father". Carl Weathers is 6'1'' while Michael B. Jordan is only 6'

Creed (2015)

This film is a spinoff of the highly successful Rocky series. This one focuses on Donnie Creed, the son of fallen boxing legend Apollo Creed from the first film.

Summary

-Former heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Balboa acts as trainer/mentor to Adonis Creed, the son of former boxing legend Apollo Creed

Cast

-Michael B. Jordan: Adonis Creed

-Sylvester Stallone: Rocky Balboa

-Tessa Thompson: Bianca

-Phylicia Rashad: Mary Anne Creed

-Andre Ward: Danny "The Stuntman" Wheeler

-Tony Bellew: "Pretty" Ricky Conlon

-Ritchie Coster: Pete Sporino

-Jacob "Stitch" Duran: Stitch

-Graham McTavish: Tommy Holiday

-Wood Harris: Tony "Little Duke" Burton

Did You Know?

-During pre-production, Sylvester Stallone's son Sage died of a heart attack. Stallone admitted this sent him nearly into a full-blown mental breakdown, but Ryan Congler was able to calm him down and convince him to do this as a sort of dedication to Sage. Despite being resistant to the idea of the father-son relationships that appear in it, Stallone said at the Golden Globes that he hoped this would help him work out any issues with Sage's death

-Sylvester Stallone asked that Michael B. Jordan wear the same American flag trunks that Apollo Creed wore in the first Rocky film, Rocky III and Rocky IV to keep the tradition alive

-Carl Weathers, who played Apollo Creed, was extremely proud of the work Michael B. Jordan did and he gave a full endorsement to the movie and praised Michael B. Jordan's performance. Jordan felt highly honored by that

-Sylvester Stallone was 69 when this film was released. This was the same age as Burgess Meredith (Mickey) when the original film from 1976 was released

-Tony "The Bomber" Bellew, a real-life championship boxer from Liverpool, England, plays boxer "Pretty" Ricky Conlon

-The soccer game between Everton and West Brom was filmed on a Monday night. Since Stallone is an Everton fan, he asked if fans wanted to participate in the crowd shots in the film

-Andre Ward is a real-life Light Heavyweight boxing champion. He won the gold medal at the 2004 summer Olympic games in Athens, Greece. The gold medal he holds in the HBO promo scene is real and belongs to him

-During filming, Sylvester Stallone had to break up a fight between two boxers featured in this movie

-The quote Rocky says to Adonis "Women weaken legs" is the same quote that was said to Rocky by his coach Mickey in the original film

-Michael B. Jordan felt immense pressure doing this film. He says Sylvester Stallone put him at ease. Michael said "Sly did the biggest thing for me, which was to take that pressure off of me...to not worry about competing or living up to what the other Rocky films were - just to be myself."

-Michael B. Jordan underwent a strict regimen of working out 2-3 times a day, 6 days a week, a strict diet. With that, he gained 24 lbs of muscle and since he didn't have a body double, he had to learn how to box to prepare for this role

-Following the tradition of his father Apollo, Adonis is also named after someone in Greek mythology. Apollo was the god of the sun while Adonis is the demi-god of beauty and desire

-Tessa Thompson, who plays Bianca, is a real-life musician. She's part of an electro band called Caught a Ghost and three of her songs are featured here: "Grip" "Breathe" "Shed You"

-The placement of names on Donnie's uniform have a significant impact. On his shorts are the name CREED, which makes his opponent think about his father's legendary heavyweight champ title while on the back is the name JOHNSON which lets Donnie build his own name and legacy

-Both gyms used in the film, Front Street Gym and Mighty Mick's Gym are both located in the Kensington section of Philadelphia

-When Tessa Thompson and Michael B. Jordan fall asleep on the couch, the film playing on TV is Skyfall (2012)

-Tony "Little Duke" Evers, played by Wood Harris, is revealed to be the son of Duke, the trainer for Apollo and Rocky who appeared in Rocky (1976), Rocky II (1979), Rocky III (1982), Rocky IV (1985), Rocky V (1990) and Rocky Balboa (2006). Duke was played by Tony Burton

-The intro music for Adonis Creed is "Hail Mary" by Tupac Shakur. It's a rumor that Michael B. Jordan will be playing the West Coast rap legend in an upcoming biopic

-Michael B. Jordan's fighting style was inspired by real life boxers Timothy Bradley, Pernell Whitaker and Andre Ward

Andre Ward

Pernell Whitaker

Timothy Bradley

-This is only the second time that Michael B. Jordan has portrayed a boxer. The first time was on an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent titled "Inhumane Society"

-In 1969, it was said that Phylicia Rashad's movie husband Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) was coached by football coach Don Coryell at San Diego State University. In 1973, he coached her real-life ex-husband Ahmad Rashad for the St. Louis Cardinals

-Michael B. Jordan's character references a line from The Godfather (1972). This is a film, ironically, that Talia Shire starred in, as Connie Corleone. In the Rocky films, she plays Adrian. In addition, Joe Spinell, who played Tony Gazzo in the first two Rocky films, played Willie Cicci in the first two Godfather films

-During the Conan vs. Wheeler fight on SportsCenter, the scrolling ticker at the bottom indicates the Golden State Warriors NBA team beat the Los Angeles Clippers 113-86. Director Ryan Coogler is a native of Oakland and grew up in the Bay Area and is a fan of the Golden State Warriors