The Domestic Box Office will continue to flourish into an incredibly stacked March month with many anticipated films releasing; the first being Creed III. Check out our weekend box office forecast below.
Tracking for the film suggests that this film will easily surpass its initial industry expectations as well as being an all-time high opening for the Creed franchise. Let’s take a look at the big stories for the box office for this upcoming weekend:
Creed III
Michael B. Jordan’s directorial debut Creed III releases in cinemas this upcoming and initial industry expectations didn’t show a massive uptick in its opening weekend potential. Creed (2015) opened to a respectable $29 million (Albeit, $45 million across Thanksgiving Weekend) and Creed II opened to $35 million (again, $56 million across Thanksgiving Weekend). Creed III is currently tracking for a total of $38-40 million in its 3-day opening which is impressive considering the franchise doesn’t quite have an expansive fanbase.
I would definitely pin this movie to open a touch above what tracking shows (you can find my predictions below). I would say this for a few reasons – the social media marketing campaign has been incredibly strong with Michael B. Jordan being very marketable and Jonathan Majors rising in the ranks thanks to his recent big performance in Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania. Another positive note is that is currently at 90% on Rotten Tomatoes suggesting a high critical consensus which will bode well for the film in its box office performance.
Struggles that lay in the wake of Creed III is the absence of Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) as the actor didn’t like the direction of the franchise and left the project. Another is the amount of male-dominated audience films such as Cocaine Bear and the new release, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre which may steal some of Creed III’s target demographic. Although I expect this to be a factor that has more influence in the long-term holdover potential rather than its first 3-days.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
I’m sorry people, I have zero faith in this movie stabilising and sustaining itself throughout the rest of its run. This tends to be the case with the majority of Marvel movies – the entirety of Phase 4 had an average drop of 45.1% in their third weekend. The highest of those groups of films? Yup, Eternals with 58.7% and we know that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Eternals have a very close critical consensus.
Further to this, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is posting the third worst box office dailies for its third week for an MCU film and close to what film? You guessed it, Eternals. I expect the trajectory to be similar to this movie and perhaps even worse considering the level of competition that March has – Creed III, Scream VI, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, John Wick: Chapter 4 and it keeps going. Look for a $215 – 230 final domestic total (just like I predicted; despite being told it’d be a billion dollar MCU flick)
Here is my Weekend Box Office Forecast:
| Film | Weekend Forecast |
| Creed III | $43,500,000 |
| Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania | $15,000,000 |
| Cocaine Bear | $10,800,000 |
| Demon Slayer: To the Swordsmith Village | $9,500,000 |
| Jesus Revolution | $9,350,000 |
| Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre | $3,900,000 |
| Avatar: The Way of Water | $3,500,000 |
| Puss in Boots: The Last Wish | $3,250,000 |
| Magic Mike’s Last Dance | $1,200,000 |
| 80 for Brady | $1,150,000 |
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