Lindsey Bahr
AP – Creed III punched above its weight at the domestic box office in its first weekend in theatres. The MGM release knocked Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania out of first place and far surpassed both industry expectations and the opening weekends of the first two movies in the franchise.
Playing in 4,007 locations in North America, Creed III earned an estimated USD58.7 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates on Sunday. Going into the weekend, analysts expected the film to open in the USD30 million range. The first Creed debuted to USD29 million in 2015 and Creed II opened to USD35 million in 2018.
Michael B Jordan made his directorial debut with Creed III, which pits his character Adonis against a childhood friend, Dame, played by Jonathan Majors. It’s the first in the Rocky/Creed films to not feature Sylvester Stallone, who chose not to return because of creative differences.
“This is beyond all of our expectations. And we knew that we had something special – we tested the movie and it tested great, but the public responded so resoundingly to it,” said MGM’s head of distribution Erik Lomis. “Everything went right here starting with the movie itself… It was just up to us not to break it when they gave it to us and we didn’t.”
Strong reviews helped Creed III, which is currently sitting at an 87 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, while audiences gave it an A- CinemaScore. The audience was largely male (63 per cent), diverse (36 per cent Black, 28 per cent Latino, 23 per cent white and 13 per cent Asian/other) and young (55 per cent between 18 and 34) according to exit polls.
Over 80 per cent of general audiences said the film was a definite recommend. With Black audiences, that number ballooned to 89 per cent.
“I’ve been doing this a long time and that’s rarefied air,” Lomis said. “People love the movie.”
It’s also the most expensive Creed film, with a reported production budget of USD75 million, compared to the others which cost USD35 million and USD50 million. Internationally, Creed III earned USD41.8 million from 75 markets, making its global debut USD100.4 million.
It’s a big moment for Amazon, who acquired MGM for USD8.5 billion last year, and could have simply released Creed III on its streaming service with a limited theatrical run. But they chose theatrical, and it paid off.
“Amazon threw their weight behind this movie like only they can do,” Lomis said. “They supercharged the campaign with marketing support across all their verticals on the platform and beyond the platform. That shows a commitment to the theatrical business model from Amazon and MGM, which I think should be exciting to everybody.”
The company’s next major theatrical release is the Ben Affleck-directed Air, starring Matt Damon, out next month.
Ant-Man 3 slipped to a distant second in its third weekend in theatres with USD12.5 million from North America and USD22 million internationally. The Marvel and Disney film’s global cume now stands at USD419.5 million. Third place went to Universal’s Cocaine Bear, which added USD11 million in its second weekend in theatres to bring its domestic total to USD41.3 million.
Crunchyroll’s Demon Slayer Kimetsu No Yaiba – To The Swordsmith Village placed fourth with USD10.1 million. The series is based on Koyoharu Gotoge’s manga about a boy avenging his family.
