SUNDAY AM: Amazon bought MGM – a motion picture studio–for $8.45 billion back in May 2021, and this weekend the streamer had their first taste of how wonderful a box office blockbuster is, as MGM/UAR’s Creed III opened to a franchise record of $58.6M.

That’s also the highest debut ever for a sports movie. At this level, Creed III stands to also become the highest-grossing Creed title stateside at $150M, besting Creed‘s $109.8M and Creed II‘s $115.7M, while also providing a lot of lift to a domestic box office looking to return to pre-Covid levels.

Some may argue, ‘Oh, well, Creed III was always meant to be theatrical.’ We can’t just go on that line, because we know how most streamers are prime to jettison a title onto their service nowadays.

Following Amazon’s $8.45 billion purchase of MGM back in May 2021, the streamer put such Lion movies as Thirteen Days and Sylvester Stallone’s $100M Samaritan on the service.

But Amazon with Creed III has turned a corner, and it should come as a lesson to all streamers, including those motion picture studios who have services, that the best publicity for a film’s success doesn’t come in the quiet, anecdotal reporting of data (nor a service’s own defined measurement of viewership), but good, old American dollars.

Amazon Studios Head Jen Salke, who emulated the Netflix limited theatrical-to-OTT service distribution model starting with the 2019 Adam Driver movie The Report, told Deadline’s Natalie Sitek at the Creed III premiere Monday that “We can look forward to more” theatrical releases. Next up for Amazon is the Easter weekend release of the Ben Affleck-directed, Matt Damon-starring Air.

“We’ll look at each film individually and make the right decision for each of them. It couldn’t be more exciting,” Salke said, “Hopefully, we’ll bring tons of people back to theaters with these two movies to start.”