No, that Creed 2 poster which Sylvester Stallone debuted over the weekend is not official, but rather some fan-art which he liked enough to share with his Instagram followers. Heck, if it was official art, I would like to think that MGM and Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc. would have waited until right after Black Panther’s opening weekend (as opposed to right in the middle of it) to debut the official one-sheet. But Creed 2, which will reunite Michael B. Jordan and Sylvester Stallone, while bringing Dolph Lundgren’s Ivan Drago and HIS son (Florian Munteanu), is in an odd position, having to be both a second Creed and an eighth Rocky movie. It is just one of a recent spate of combo sequels.
As studios continue to rely on IP and try to find fresh ways to keep brands and franchises interesting to a generation of moviegoers who no longer consider the conventional would-be event movie to be much of an event, I imagine we may see more of this sort of “two sequels for the price of one” release. And as a movie, Ryan Coogler’s Creed was a fine example of having your cake and eating it too, presenting both a de-facto Rocky sequel and a genuinely rare studio programmer/character drama about a young black man in the heroic lead role. That it was written and directed by a black man (and featured a black female love interest in Tessa Thompson) made it something of a statistical miracle.
Creed earned $173 million worldwide on a $35m budget. Stallone has had most of his good luck with the Rocky and Rambo movies (save for periodic anomalies like Cliffhanger and Cobra), a sequel was inevitable. But a sequel to what? At a glance, Creed 2 looks more like a sequel to Rocky IV than a sequel to Creed, which (presuming that’s true) may be an issue if more folks are more excited about another Creed movie than another Rocky movie. I think, especially after this weekend, that a sequel to Creed is of more commercial value than a sequel to Rocky. The Steven Caple Jr.-directed/Cheo Hodari Coker-penned boxing drama can hopefully satiate both fan bases or at least put the emphasis on the right IP.
We saw this last summer when Alien: Covenant sold itself not as a sequel to the $400 million+ grossing Prometheus but rather a prequel to an Alien franchise that hasn’t produced a beloved installment since 1986. Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant bombed in North America, earning just $74 million (less than the original Alien back in 1979) and making just $240m worldwide on a $97m budget. We can debate whether folks would have been more enticed by a Prometheus sequel (which Alien: Covenant arguably was) than a conventional Alien prequel, or the notion that Prometheus wasn’t terribly beloved despite its big grosses. But it stands as an interesting scenario in terms of knowing what to sell to general audiences versus what to sell to the hardcore fan base. Heck, even The Last Jedi wrestled with this, existing as a sequel to The Force Awakens as well as a sequel to the initial Star Wars movies.
I don’t expect Creed 2 to cost that much more than $40 million, so it can suffer a similar downturn (which would be around $102m worldwide) and still be okay. That’s also where Blumhouse’s Glass stands just under a year from release. After M. Night Shyamalan’s Split became a shockingly successful and leggy horror hit ($278m worldwide on a $9m budget), the film’s closing moment became a statement of purpose. The Anya Taylor-Joy/James McAvoy thriller was revealed to take place in the world of the Bruce Willis/Samuel L. Jackson superhero drama Unbreakable, and Shyamalan’s next movie would be a Split 2 and Unbreakable 2 combo sequel. But Split may be the bigger IP for moviegoers, many of whom weren’t even born when Unbreakable opened over Thanksgiving 2000.
Maybe Blumhouse and M. Night Shyamalan overestimated the general audience interest in an 18-year old superhero origin story that earned $248 million worldwide on a $75m budget just before the superhero movie craze took off. Maybe they didn’t and folks who have discovered the still-terrific Unbreakable over the last 1.5 decades will flock to see the follow-up right alongside the Split fans. But I am reasonably sure that the movie (which will be distributed by Universal/Comcast Corp. in North America and Walt Disney overseas) will be closer in budget to the $9m Split than the $75m Unbreakable. The reasonable budget makes this combo sequel something of an easy win unless (however unlikely) it’s so bad that it damages Shyamalan’s brand. But otherwise, Glass is a pretty safe bet.
We will see how these next two high-profile combo sequels play out this Thanksgiving and then next January. And I will be curious to see if this becomes a mini-trend, as we almost saw with Sony’s aborted 21 Jump Street/Men in Black cross-over project. After all, if there is actually value in interconnected properties, there’s no law saying you can’t just cross-over any two of your franchises and go to town. The possibilities are endless, from a Fast and Furious/Pitch Perfect cross-over to a team-up caper with John Wick and Chev Chelios. These may not be good ideas, but they are ideas and I’d be surprised if Hollywood didn’t start hitting the blender if Glass and Creed 2 both score big.
