Michael B. Jordan

Michael B. Jordan (birthname: Michael Bakari Jordan) is one of Hollywood’s fastest-rising stars to quickly expanded his talents into producing and directing. Jordan’s feature debut at age 13 was producer-director Brian Robbins’ Hardball (2001), about Chicago inner-city youth baseball, grossing $44 million. After seven years, Jordan returned to features in a supporting role in writer-director Jerry Lamothe’s indie drama, Blackout (2007), co-starring Zoe Saldana, LaTanya Richardson, Saul Rubinek, Melvin Van Peebles, and Jeffrey Wright, and premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Red Tails (2012), depicting the legendary WW2 unit, the Tuskegee Airmen, was Jordan’s next feature acting assignment, playing opposite Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard, Nate Parker, and David Oyelowo, and written by John Ridley, and grossing under costs at $50.4. million. The first hit movie with Jordan in the cast was 20^th Century Fox’s superhero thriller, Chronicle (2012), directed and co-written by Josh Trank and co-starring Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, and Michael Kelly, and grossing nearly ten times costs with a global return of $126.6 million.

Michael B. Jordan’s breakthrough performance was in writer-director Ryan Coogler’s Oakland-based indie drama, Fruitvale Station (2013), with Melonie Diaz, Octavia Spencer, and Kevin Durand, and earning 17 times its costs with a $17.4 million box office after a smash festival run at Sundance and Cannes, where it won the Camera d’Or for the best debut film. Jordan then co-starred with Zac Efron and Miles Teller in writer-director Tom Gormican’s comedy, That Awkward Moment (2014), grossing five times costs with a $40.5 million global return. Jordan’s second superhero movie with writer-director Trank was the MCU-based The Fantastic Four (2015), starring Teller, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, and Tim Blake Nelson, and grossing a disappointing $168 million (against a $155 million budget).

Michael B. Jordan’s next big leap to stardom happened with the Rocky reboot, Creed (2015), written and directed by Ryan Coogler, and co-starring Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, and Phylicia Rashad, and grossing a quadrupled total (above $40 million costs) of $173.6 million worldwide. This launched one of two major franchises co-starring Jordan, the other being Coogler’s Marvel mega-hit, Black Panther (2018), with Jordan playing Killmonger opposite Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Angela Bassett, and Forest Whitaker, and earning nearly $1.4 billion for Marvel and distributor Disney.

After serving as executive producer (plus a cameo) on the sci-fi thriller, Kin (2018), with Myles Truitt, Jack Reynor, and Zoe Kravitz, Michael B. Jordan returned to his franchise work starring in Creed II (2018), with Dolph Lundgren joining the cast of regulars from the original movie, and grossing $214 million globally. Jordan starred and produced in his next three feature projects: the true story Just Mercy (2019), written and directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, and co-starring Jamie Foxx and Brie Larson, and doubling $25 million costs with a $50.4 million box office return; Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse (2021) for Amazon Prime; and one of Jordan’s few commercial failures, the family drama A Journal for Jordan (2021), directed by Denzel Washington and co-starring Chanté Adams and Jalon Christian.

Jordan revived his Killmonger character in a cameo for writer-director Coogler’s successful sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), which underperformed its predecessor’s box office take with $858 million worldwide. For the first time, Jordan was star-director-producer, on Creed III (2023), with new castmates Jonathan Majors and Wood Harris. Jordan starred as the Biblical figure, Methuselah (date to be announced), under Danny Boyle’s direction for Warner Bros., followed by the tentatively titled Thomas Crown Affair Project (date to be announced) as well as the Paramount Pictures action-adventure under Chad Stahelski’s direction, Rainbow Six (date to be announced); and was slated to star in the true-life school drama, Wrong Answer (date to be announced), directed by Coogler and written by Ta-Nehisi Coates.