The director and star of Sundance hit Fruitvale Station are set to dramatically enter the mainstream after being taken on by Hollywood studio MGM to work on Creed, a spinoff from the blockbusting Rocky movies.
Ryan Coogler, who wrote and directed Fruitvale Station, an account of the real-life killing of Oscar Grant by a transit policeman in Oakland, California in 2008, is now set to direct and co-write Creed, what in effect will be the seventh Rocky film. Reports suggest it will focus on the grandson of boxer Apollo Creed, the fearsome heavyweight (played by Carl Weathers) who dies in the ring in Rocky IV. Michael B Jordan, who played Grant in Fruitvale Station, is in talks to play the young Creed, while Sylvester Stallone is due to make an appearance as the retired fighter Rocky Balboa.
Fruitvale Station first screened at Sundance 2013, where it won the grand jury (dramatic) prize as well as the audience award (dramatic), and was also selected for Cannes. The clear parallels between Grant's death and that of Trayvon Martin led to extraordinary interest in the film it was released on the same weekend as the verdict was handed down in the trial of George Zimmerman.
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