5/17/19 Weekend Actuals - John Wick 3 snipes competition with $56.8M opening as Avengers: Endgame becomes second biggest domestic film
Gunning down almost all expectations going into the weekend, Keanu Reeves scored his first number one debut in over a decade with John Wick 3 surging more than 80% higher than Chapter 2 to a $56.8M opening weekend, the highest for studio Lionsgate since the final Hunger Games film in November 2014. The growth of the franchise is pretty much unprecedented in the modern era, with only the only threequel showing similar expansion from the second being Captain America: Civil War, which had more than a few extenuating circumstances. Wasting no time, Lionsgate has also announced a fourth film, set to release on the same pre Memorial Day weekend in two years time. It’ll certainly be exciting to see if the fanbase can continue to build up and push Chapter 4 to a $70M+ debut.
With a holiday weekend coming up, Wick 3 is well positioned to crack the $150M mark domestically and could fly even higher. Initial word of mouth metrics are the strongest of the series so far, the first two weekdays have been great ($5.7M Monday and $6.6M Tuesday), adult driven films typically exhibit solid legs, and the competition this summer caters to a different audience than the Wick flicks do. Optimistically, $180M+ domestic is possible, which would nearly double the $92.0M cume of John Wick 2. Overseas, the uptick hasn’t been quite as strong, with a $36.5M foreign debut in 65 territories. This should be more than enough to surpass the $100M internationally, though much more than that seems unlikely.
Slipping to second place, Avengers: Endgame’s fourth weekend hit $30.0M representing a 52.6% drop. The weekly declines continue to be worse than previous Avengers films, but when you’ve already grossed $100M more than Infinity War there is not a whole lot of room left to grow. Through Tuesday, Endgame now stands about $150M short of becoming the highest grossing film of all time worldwide, and if legs can finally start to stabilize with the debut of another Disney film, it should reach that mark sometime in early June.
Getting zapped with a 53.8% weekend drop, Detective Pikachu has amassed $99.6M through Tuesday and will break $100M on Wednesday as the international total crosses $200M as well. The run continues to fit squarely in the middling category, as it is neither an outright flop nor a success that makes for a strong franchise foundation. A domestic total of $145M and a worldwide result around $420M looks probable, and put sequel discussion in a nebulous area.
Opening a bit below expectations, A Dog’s Journey scored a mediocre $8.0M opening, down significantly from the other Dog’s films, and should signify a domestic total no more than $30M.
The worst news of the weekend came from Warner Bros. romcom The Sun Is Also a Star, which had the 30th worst debut in 2,000+ theaters with only $2.5M over the weekend. This is far away one of the most brutal first weekends for an adaptation, and is likely a quarter or less of what WB was anticipated when they greenlit the project.
TOP TWELVE
| Weekend | Projected Total | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum | $56,818,067 | $167,300,000 | |
| Avengers: Endgame | $29,973,505 | $847,000,000 | |
| Detective Pikachu | $25,108,159 | $144,800,000 | |
| A Dog's Journey | $8,030,085 | $31,800,000 | |
| The Hustle | $6,139,638 | $38,400,000 | |
| The Intruder | $4,017,808 | $37,700,000 | |
| Long Shot | $3,341,917 | $33,600,000 | |
| The Sun Is Also a Star | $2,511,530 | $7,000,000 | |
| Poms | $2,180,698 | $14,100,000 | |
| UglyDolls | $1,779,617 | $20,900,000 | |
| Breakthrough | $1,081,480 | $41,700,000 |