*cue intense training montage music*

Creed III dominated the US box office this weekend, grossing $58.6 million in ticket sales, a record-high for the nine-film Rocky franchise. It’s also the highest non-inflation-adjusted sports film opening of all time *historic post-opening fist pump*.

🥊 But this triumph all started back in 1976… The road to Creed III began almost fifty years ago, when an unknown actor named Sylvestor Stallone wrote a script called Rocky in three days. He then pitched the script to some producers while auditioning for a different film.

And while Stallone didn’t get the part he was auditioning for, the producers loved the script and offered him $360,000 for it on one condition: he couldn’t play the lead. Stallone refused, and eventually the producers relented and gave him $1 million to make the film.

🍿🏆 The rest was history. Rocky became the highest grossing movie of the year, bringing in over $117 million at the box office (an inflation-adjusted $515 million); it also won three Oscars, including Best Picture. Stallone went on to make five sequels: Rocky II, III, IV, V, and Rocky Balboa.

• In 2015, the series was revived with Creed, a spin-off about the son of Apollo Creed, Rocky’s rival in the first two films.
• Michael B. Jordan played the lead role of Adonis Creed in all three Creed films. He also made his directorial debut for Creed III.

👀 Looking ahead… Up next in the Rocky Cinematic Universe (RCU): Drago, a film about Rocky’s infamous Russian opponent in Rocky IV.