The domestic box office brought in over $112 million this weekend, kudos to a franchise record start from “Creed III.”
With a $58.7 million weekend, the boxing film burst onto the scene, with the largest opening for the “Rocky” spinoff franchise. Combine that with an impressive $41.8 million internationally, “Creed III” made over $100 million worldwide in its opening weekend. With a reported $75 million budget, the film likely needs a gross of around $272 million worldwide to break even. Of that $272 million, around $160 million will need to be domestic earnings, considering the domestic to international split of the opening weekend. That important 2.72x multiplier is very doable, though it does face significant competition in the coming weeks.
Second place is “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” with a gross of $12.5 million. This is a 61% drop for the first MCU Phase 5 film, following last weekend’s 69.7% drop. “Quantumania”’s relatively poor audience reception is absolutely killing its legs. We said a few weeks ago the film would need a 3.15x multiplier to break even; after three weekends it currently sits at 1.76x. There’s question to whether or not “Quantumania” will even clear a 2x multiplier at this point. While it will cross over $200 million domestically in the next week or two, the conclusion of the “Ant-Man” trilogy is certainly a disappointing one from a critical and financial perspective.
In third is the infamous “Cocaine Bear,” which earned another $11 million this weekend. The Universal film increased its domestic total to north of $41 million. This is still well south of our previously mentioned $85 million that the film will likely need domestically to profit (“Cocaine Bear”’s break-even is around $128 million worldwide). With a 53% drop, the comedy- action-horror hybrid simply isn’t showing the legs we once thought it could have. While a sub-55% second weekend drop is not bad, with incoming competition and a prospective decrease in screens, “Cocaine Bear” will have to claw quite a distance to profit.
In fourth and fifth place are “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – To the Swordsmith Village” and “Jesus Revolution” with $10.1 million and $8.7 million respectively. The form is a re-release of the concluding episodes of the previous anime season and the premiere of a new episode. Even with this re-release aspect, the film still earned above $10 million, though it will likely fall significantly next week. “Jesus Revolution” fell only 46% this past weekend to reach $30.5 million domestically. As we said last week, the film needs to clear $44 million to break even, which seems likely now for the faith-based drama.
Next weekend brings the wide release of three films — “Scream VI,” “65” and “Champions.”
“Scream VI” is a follow-up to last year’s critically acclaimed “Scream” and as titled, is the sixth installment of the horror franchise. I think the film will open to $33 million domestically.
“65” is a science fiction action film starring Adam Driver distributed by Sony. I expect the film to earn $17 million next weekend.
“Champions” is a sports comedy starring Woody Harrelson. I predict the film will gross $5 million in its opening.
But you never know with the box office, there are surprises every week.
Will “Scream VI” slash the competition or will “65” travel to the top of the charts?
As always, we shall see.
