‘Creed III’ Is a Major (and Majors) Success

It’s a winner by decisive knockout.

Michael B. Jordan’s latest chapter in the Adonis Creed saga, Creed III, clobbered the competition this weekend, with an estimated $58.6 million take at the domestic box office. That pummels the performance of Creed II, which opened to $35.5, and the first Creed, which brought in $29.9 over the Thanksgiving frame in 2015. Deadline called the success “the highest debut ever for a sports movie.”

The film also scored well in international markets, collecting $41.8 million, putting it across the $100 million mark worldwide in its opening weekend. The sports drama has a sturdy 87 percent from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, though a more tempered 74 from Metacritic. Cinemascore, which collects data from exiting ticket buyers, awarded the film an A-. 

This is Jordan’s first time behind the director’s chair and, considering the success, quite likely not his last. 

Creed III is the first of the trilogy that has no connective tissue to Sylvester Stallone’s character Rocky Balboa. (Not even incorporating Bill Conti’s musical themes, which were used to great effect in the first Creed.) Last summer, Stallone began publicly sparring with producers Iwrin, Charles, and David Winkler over rights to the characters. He uploaded some emotional messages to Instagram, including one that read “ONCE AGAIN,  this PATHETIC 94 year old PRODUCER and HIS MORONIC USELESS VULTURE CHILDREN, Charles And David,  are once again picking clean THE BONES of another wonderful character I created without even telling me,” when there was news of a Dolph Lundgren-led project in the works called Drago.

But to put it in terms the Mar-A-Lago member Stallone might connect with, the invisible fist of the marketplace has clearly spoken!

And a lot of what they are saying is how much they love Jonathan Majors as Adonis Creed’s challenger, Damian “Dame” Anderson. Indeed, the villain of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and star of the Sundance smash Magazine Dreams, dominated social media this weekend, with no shortage of winning memes. Some of them definitely trend to the “thirsty” side, so for now we’ll just stick with these three clips.