MGM’s “Creed III” not only took the best domestic opening for the entire “Rocky” franchise, but it also delivered a big punch in overseas markets.
The Michael B. Jordan-directed film combines anime influences on boxing scenes mixed with the franchise’s more familiar beats of masculine melodrama and training montages. The result was a domestic best opening weekend of $58.6 million domestically.
Internationally it also struck a blow with a further $41.8 million overseas, delivering a worldwide opening weekend of $100.4 million. Made on a production budget of $75 million, the film looks like it’ll hit profit fairly easily and certainly looks set to surpass the first two “Creed” films which had total worldwide grosses of $173.5 million and $214 million respectively over their entire runs.
The film’s stars Jordan and Jonathan Majors have been out promoting the film lately, including a chat with The New York Times where they aim to collaborate together again on projects with De Niro and Pacino’s working relationship brought up as a comparison.
Meanwhile in its third weekend, “Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania” fell another 62% to $12.4 million. That brings its domestic total to $186.3 million and worldwide to $419.5 million. The film doesn’t appear to have legs and with the marketplace about to become saturated, it may end up one of the softest-grossing Marvel films in a long time.
“Cocaine Bear” fared better, dipping just 54% in its second weekend to a further $11 million domestic total of $41.2 million and a further $10 million overseas.
All face a fully packed release slate over the next few weeks with “Scream VI” and “65” on March 10th, “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” on March 17th, “John Wick: Chapter 4” on March 24th, “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” on March 31st, and “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” on April 5th.
