10 Movie Spinoffs Much Better Than The Franchise That Spawned Them
6. Creed
The Rocky series may have turned the humble title hero into cinema's most famous fictional boxer, and while each new installment with the notable exception of Rocky V has plenty of fans, it can't be denied that from a pure filmmaking perspective Creed is hands down the finest entry in the long-running franchise since the first.
With Rocky Balboa as the focus, the sequels kept getting more and more contrived to the point that they came dangerously close to jumping the shark altogether, although the self-titled sixth movie brought a welcome return to the slightly-heightened realism that made the character's adventures so popular in the first place.
Even if it wasn't part of an established franchise, Creed still would have delivered in a huge way as one of the greatest sports dramas in recent memory, and the fact that Sylvester Stallone slipped seamlessly into the role that made him a star and delivered perhaps the best performance of his entire career in the process only gave Adonis' tale of adversity and triumph that much more of an emotional gut-punch.