How Creed 3’s Ending Fight Became a Surreal Boxing Dream World
thewrap.comCreed III” demonstrates, they even stand apart from each other.“Creed III” sees series star Michael B. Jordan make his directorial debut with a threequel in which Adonis comes face-to-face with his childhood friend Damian (Jonathan Majors), a Golden Gloves-winning amateur boxer who went to jail for reasons not immediately revealed.
Feeling that the success and opportunity Creed enjoys was taken from him, Dame’s initially warm reunion with the now-retired champion turns south, culminating in a deeply personal fight before a sold-out crowd at Dodger Stadium.But after an initial exchange of haymakers between Creed and Dame, the fight abruptly transforms, plunging the two fighters and the audience into a surreal dream world.
The thousands of roaring fans in Chavez Ravine disappear, the stadium lights replaced by a hazy glow. It is a world that “Creed III” cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau said Jordan had always envisioned for the film’s climax from the moment the film was greenlit.“That sequence, which we called ‘The Void,’ was always in MBJ’s vision exactly as how we executed it,” Morgenthau, who also served as the DP for “Creed II,” told TheWrap. “He described it as these two men, who are halves of a greater whole, finally working through years and years of trauma in a poetic space where everything else drops out.
It’s some of the most exciting work I’ve ever been involved in as a cinematographer.” Even veteran referee Tony Weeks disappears as the two men throw hands at each other with each blow echoing in this silent world.
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