CREED III beat all comers with an impressive three-day opening weekend of $58.7M. Amazon’s MGM Studios was responsible for this ninth film in the ROCKY franchise, which is also the directorial debut of Michael B. Jordan. Jordan also stars for the third time in the title role of Adonis “Donnie” Creed alongside Tessa Thompson as Bianca Taylor and Jonathan Majors as Damian “Dame” Anderson.
This is the first ROCKY feature without an on-screen role for Sylvester Stallone, due to a long-running feud he has with producer Irwin Winkler. In 1976, Stallone relinquished to Winkler the intellectual property rights to ROCKY as a condition for his support to make the original, iconic film. Those rights have added up to hundreds of millions of dollars in value, with Stallone only receiving a much smaller amount for his contribution as an actor in the prior eight movies.
Proving that the third time’s a charm, it’s the second case in the past three weeks that a third chapter in a major film series has opened with a higher box office than the earlier releases. CREED III’s $58.7M surpassed CREED’s $30M in 11/2015 and CREED II’s $36M in 11/2018, just as ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA’s $107M beat out the first ANT-MAN’s $57M in 6/2015 and ANT-MAN AND THE WASP’s $76M in 7/2018.
Critics are weighing in on CREED III with a very fresh Tomatometer score of 87% while moviegoers have been even more enthusiastic with a 96% audience rating. As with all franchises, production costs go up along the way with CREED III costing $75M to make compared with CREED at $40M and CREED II at $50M. CREED III’s strong opening compared to its predecessors would seem to indicate that it has a strong chance to be profitable, considering that CREED II wound up with a worldwide gross of $214M. The ROCKY/CREED series is already the #1 sports film franchise in history, amassing more than $1.5B worldwide over its remarkable 47-year span.
ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA finished in second place with $12.5M, down 61% from last weekend. This was an improvement from the steep 70% drop it suffered from its first to the second weekend. ANT-MAN’s 17-day domestic cume is $187M, with its worldwide total at $374M. COCAINE BEAR finished in third place with $11M, a decline of 53% from last weekend’s impressive opening. Over 10 days, Universal’s surprise hit has already roared to $41M domestically and over $48M worldwide.
DEMON SLAYER: KIMETSU NO YAIBA – TO THE SWORDSMITH VILLAGE – certain to be the longest movie title of the year – opened in fourth place with $10.1M. The latest anime feature from Crunchyroll/Sony is actually three movies in one, consisting of the 10TH and 11TH episodes of the ENTERTAINMENT DISTRICT story arc together with the 1ST episode of the SWORDSMITH VILLAGE story arc.
Since the pandemic began, the anime genre has emerged as an increasingly large contributor to the box office, with its two leading distributors Sony/Crunchyroll and G-Kids having released more than 20 new titles in the last six months alone. This abundance may be leading to diminishing returns with opening weekend grosses declining from last year’s twin peaks of DRAGON BALL SUPER: SUPER HERO ($21M) and the JUJUTSU KAISEN 0 ($18M). Only four months ago, the anime title ONE PIECE FILM: RED opened to $9M and then faded quickly to wind up with a total run of only $13M. Interest from even the most avid anime fans appears to be waning.
JESUS REVOLUTION rounded out the top five with a gross of $8.7M in its second weekend, down 46% from its debut. After 10 days, it has taken in $30.5M in North America before its upcoming release in foreign markets. The third new wide-release movie this weekend was Lionsgate’s OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE GUERRE which slotted in at a disappointing seventh place with a weekend total of $3.1M. This Guy Ritchie-directed film is a globe-trotting action adventure in the vein of James Bond.
It features a strong cast led by Jason Statham, Aubrey Plaza, Hugh Grant, and Josh Hartnett. Critics have panned it with a 54% Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes but moviegoers have been overwhelmingly positive with a 91% rating. The film has followed a tortured path to release, having been ready to release more than a year ago under STX Entertainment which was eyeing a March 2022 opening.
This was pushed back at the last minute over concerns that it would be poorly received by American and European audiences because the “bad guys” in the story are of Ukrainian descent. After a cooling-off period, Lionsgate picked up its distribution rights for the domestic market. The movie has already been released internationally, where it has generated $30M in its first two months. The challenge for RUSE DE GUERRE is that it cost $50M to produce, so its soft domestic opening leaves it with little chance of reaching profitability.
The total box office for all films this weekend came in at $116M, well short of the $165M earned in the same weekend last year when Warner Bros.’ THE BATMAN starring Robert Pattinson opened to $132M. It is only the second weekend this year that has produced a lower box office than the same weekend in 2022.
WHERE ARE WE AS OF 3/2
After eight weeks in 2023, this year’s box office grosses stand at 152% compared to those same weeks in 2022. Next week’s comparison is sure to decline, as the 2022 numbers will include the opening week of THE BATMAN. After eight weeks, the 2023 total remains at only 75% compared with 2019.