Sylvester Stallone spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about not reprising his role as Rocky Balboa in this sequel "That's a regretful situation because I know what it could have been," Stallone told THR's James Hibberd. "It was taken in a direction that is quite different than I would've taken it. It's a different philosophy [producer] Irwin Winkler's and Michael B. Jordan's," Stallone said of the movie to THR. "I wish them well, but I'm much more of a sentimentalist. I like my heroes getting beat up, but I just don't want them going into that dark space. I just feel people have enough darkness." Stallone also revealed in the interview that despite having created Rocky Balboa, he has never had any rights to the character, despite asking Winkler. "It's never gonna happen," Stallone said. "It was a deal that was done unbeknownst to me by people that I thought were close to me and they basically gave away whatever rights I would have had." "At the time I was so excited to be working and I didn't understand this is a business," he continued. "Who knew 'Rocky' would go on for another 45 years? I've never used one [line of dialogue] from anyone else and the irony is that I don't own any of it. The people who have done literally nothing control it." I'm not an executive producer on the 'Creed' movies. Ryan Coogler is. Michael B. Jordan is. [Winkler and fellow producer Robert Chartoff's] children are. Not mine. I'm the only one left out."
In the opening flashback, Adonis gives Damien a ticket Apollo had of the famous Rumble in the Jungle fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. Both Ali and Foreman were inspirations for Apollo's characterization.
In early 2020 it was reported that Creed III would be Michael B. Jordan's directing debut. He executive produced Creed II: Defendiendo el legado (2018).
This will be the first film in the Rocky/Creed series to not feature Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa. With his absence, there will be no characters who have appeared in every film in the series.