Box Office Report: Creed Crushes Ants

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | March 6, 2023 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | March 6, 2023 |

The Rocky/Creed franchise has long proven itself to be one of immense financial clout, and Michael B. Jordan is continuing that proud trend with Creed III. The film marks his directorial debut as well as his third time in the title role, and audiences flocked to it. The sequel earned strong reviews and there’s enough name power here to push it to the top spot with over $58.6 million from 4,007 theaters. That’s over $16 million more than the first Creed movie made in its opening weekend, and $2.6 million over Creed II. It’s a great start to Jordan’s work behind the camera, and another notch in his belt as a leading man.

Things weren’t so good for Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. We’re three weeks into the domestic release of the first MCU film of 2023 and it saw a major 61% drop from the previous week. It only brought in $12.4 million this past weekend, which is barely $1.4 million more than Cocaine Bear. The reviews and bad word-of-mouth clearly made an impact, but I’m hesitant to describe it as a symptom of Marvel fatigue just yet. After all, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is coming up next and we all know that will make its money.

The anime film Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba - To the Swordsmith Village opened at number four with $10,117,806 from 1,774 theaters, which is a big win for Crunchyroll, its distributor. The manga and anime are very big deals. The last Demon Slayer movie, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Movie: Mugen Train (anime film titles are a whole thing), is the highest-grossing Japanese film of all time. Anime is cool, guys.

A new Guy Ritchie film dropped this month. Yeah, Lionsgate seemed weirdly hesitant to promote it, even though reviews were solid. Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre, which sounds like it could be the title of an anime movie, made $3.16 million from 2,168 theaters.

The Oscars finally take place this coming Sunday, and some distributors are using this opportunity to get a few more eyeballs on their movie. A24 put Everything Everywhere All at Once back in an extra 327 theaters for a $175,039 weekend gross. Tár got a 104% boost from the previous weekend, and The Banshees of Inisherin got a small increase, even though it’s now streaming.

This coming week sees the release of Adam Driver’s 65 and the horror sequel Scream 6.

You can check out the rest of the weekend box office here.