Creed lll has made history at the box office, scoring the biggest opening weekend for a sports film ever in the U.S.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the third installment of the Michael B. Jordan-starring film racked in roughly $58.7 million at the domestic box office over the weekend, smashing the projections that studios expected it to earn. Creed lll also grossed $41.8 million overseas, bringing its first-weekend global total to $100.4 million.
“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,” Erik Lomis, MGM’s head of distribution, told the Associated Press. “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.”
The third installment is also on pace to be the highest-grossing Creed film, with new projections estimating that it will earn around $150 million. Creed and Creed ll, the film's first two installments, earned $109.8 million and $115.7 million, respectively.
Creed III is the first installment that doesn't feature the boxer himself, Sylvester Stallone, but marked the addition of actor Jonathan Majors.
“The thing that got my attention was how he was pitching it, with so much passion and clarity, and that this would be a character coming in who we’ve not seen before,” Majors told Entertainment Weekly of how Jordan convinced him to join the cast. “I thought it was a huge opportunity to join the franchise, and also to work alongside Michael and learn everything he’s experienced in his twenty-plus years of working in this industry.”
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