With March already upon us, we are starting to see the beginnings of a steady stream of surefire box office hits hitting theaters due to post production houses finally working through their covid related backlog of titles. This week sees the highly anticipated release of Creed III which is currently tracking to have a franchise best opening of around $40 million. Many people wondered how star Michael B. Jordan would do in his debut directing gig, but reviews (including a 9/10 from our own JimmyO) have been quite excellent. Sadly this appears to be the first Rocky related film without Stallone appearing on camera, and that does bring my excitement for this threequel down a bit, but with the great Jonathan Majors stepping into another villainous role, I’m sure this one will be another hit in the franchise that can pull off that $40 million start.
The next new release opening wide this weekend is the long delayed Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre which was originally meant for release in 2022 but was pulled at the last minute with no real reason given. It was later revealed that the film features Ukrainian bad guys and producers felt it would be in bad taste to release the film at a time when Ukraine was being attacked by Russia. When the studio started to plot putting the film in theaters, the production company ran into some financial troubles which delayed the release even further. So Lionsgate stepped in and announced the films release date just a few weeks ago. With not much time for advertising, this one may struggle to hit a home run at the box office but could hit around $6 million if Guy Ritchie die hards show up.
This weekend will also see a new Crunchyroll Studios film hit theaters with Demon Slayer: To The Swordsmith Village. This one currently has tracking around $10 million and as I am not a big anime fan, I have no reason to bet against that number!
Holdover films such as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Cocaine Bear will face some competition for their targeted demographics this weekend as Creed III looks to snap upon some of their audience, but given last weeks massive 70% drop off for Ant-Man I think we will see things start to level out and it will hit around $13 million for the weekend while Cocaine Bear will be interesting to see what type of drop off it has based on the fact that it seemed to be the movie everyone was talking about this week, yet its audience score is currently at just a 75% (for comparison, the much maligned Ant-Man 3 currently has an audience score of 83%). I think we may see an over 50% decline with it pulling around $10.5 million this weekend.
The remainder of the box office will be your holdovers with Jesus Revolution and its current 99% audience score probably having a pretty solid hold from last weekend and seeing just under $10 million for the weekend. The films release mimics co-director Jon Erwin’s last box office hit I Can Only Imagine which only dropped 20% in its second weekend. Apart from that you can expect Avatar, Puss in Boots, Magic Mike and 80 For Brady to round out the top ten.
Do you plan on checking out anything in theaters this weekend? If so let us know in the comments and don’t forget to check back on Saturday when we give a brief update of the numbers.
TOP FIVE PREDICTIONS:
- Creed III– $40 Million
- Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania– $40 Million
- Cocaine Bear– $10.5 Million
- Demon Slayer: To The Swordsmith Village– $10 Million
- Jesus Revolution– $9.5 Million