Dolph Lundgren Reveals Status of ‘Rocky’ Spinoff After Sylvester Stallone Shares Disapproving Comments

News recently broke that a Rocky spinoff was in the works called Drago. The spinoff would focus on the Russian father and son duo of Ivan (Dolph Lundgren) and Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu). Sylvester Stallone recently took to Instagram, slamming the development of this Rocky spinoff. Now, Lundgren has responded to his comments with an update on the status of this spinoff. 

Sylvester Stallone shared heated comments on the ‘Rocky’ spinoff

Rocky Balboa is a role that Sylvester Stallone holds dear to his heart as he has played the character in eight different movies. It would seem like any project within the Rocky universe should have his involvement. However, when news broke about the Drago spinoff, Stallone took to his Instagram in a now-removed post where he went on an angered rant regarding this news. 

“Heartbreaker… Just found this out… ONCE AGAIN, IRWIN WINKLER , this PATHETIC 94 year old PRODUCER and HIS MORONIC VULTURE CHILDREN, Charles And David , are once again picking clean THE BONES of another wonderful character I created without even telling me,” Stallone said. “I APOLOGIZE to the FANS , I never wanted ROCKY characters to be exploited by these parasites… By the way, I once had nothing but respect for Dolph but he NEVER told me about what was going on behind my back with the character I created for him !!! REAL FRIENDS Are more precious than gold.”

The actor clearly was not given a heads up about this and shared his disapproval loudly. However, Lundgren says he was under the impression that Stallone was aboard. 

Dolph Lundgren addresses the status of ‘Drago’

Following these comments, Lundgren shared a post on his Instagram account where he updated fans on the status of Drago. The Rocky 4 actor says the project is still very early in development and he thought Sylvester Stallone was already involved as either a producer or an actor. 

“Just to set the record straight regarding a possible Drago spinoff. There’s no approved script, no deals in place, no director and I was personally under the impression that my friend Sly Stallone was involved as a producer or even as an actor,” Lundgren explained. “There was a press leak last week which was unfortunate. In touch with Mr Balboa – just so all the fans can relax…There ya go.”

Lundgren returned for Creed II as his son trained to fight Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan). The possibility of continuing the story of the Drago’s does seem interesting, but it also doesn’t appear that news of this spinoff was supposed to come out just yet. 

Stallone is not returning for ‘Creed 3’

In addition to the Drago spinoff, Sylvester Stallone is not set to return as Rocky for Creed 3. Rocky appeared in the first two Creed movies as a mentor and trainer for Adonis after having a rivalry and close friendship with his father, Apollo (Carl Weathers). However, the focus of the franchise moving forward appears to be more on Adonis than Rocky. 

Creed 3 will be Jordan’s directorial debut and it hits theaters on March 3, 2023.