5/17/19 Weekend Predictions - John Wick 3 looks to headshot Thanos and Pikachu with smashing debut
“You think you can take John Wick? You’ve gotta a nasty surprise coming.”
Serving as yet another unexpected action genre classic for Keanu Reeves, October 2014’s John Wick was a modest hit with a $14.4M and showed decent legs with a $43.0M total. Though it would be handily topped by a number of action films that year, Wick’s filmmaking, weird world, and leading performance would leave a lasting impression, inspiring many films in the proceeding years, and boost its fanbase on home video. A shade over two years later, the sequel would more than double the opening of the first with $30.4M, and even more impressively, showed better legs with a $92.0M domestic finish. Now Lionsgate, in a bold play, is positioning the third installment of the franchise in the Hollywood summer month of May. Will increased competition cap John Wick 3 around the same $30M mark, or can it again double up its opening weekend? Remarkably, a lot of signs are pointing towards the latter.
The biggest benefit in Wick 3’s favor is the reception of Chapter 2, which was received more strongly both critically and commercially than the original, and also featured a very hype cliffhanger. As we saw with Endgame, a great cliffhanger can significantly increase anticipation, and that certainly seems to be the case here: trailer views are way up compared to Wick 2 and other contemporaries, similarly for presale data, and most PLF screens along with a lion’s share of IMAX theaters will be playing it this weekend. One might criticize the move by Lionsgate to push this into the summer with more competition, but this brand of hard knuckle R-rated action has different appeal from the typical CGI summer extravaganza: Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver was able to gross $107.8M in summer for the same reason.
John Wick 3 opens in more than 3,700+ theaters, a substantial increase from 3,113 Chapter 2 had. Tracking services have the hitman action film opening in the mid 30’s to as much as $40M, however, with all the positive buzz coming in (along with the best reviews of the franchise with 93% on Rotten Tomatoes) it’s hard to see this not opening to at least $45M (Side note: even this would rank as the biggest opener for Lionsgate since Insurgent on May 20, 2015). Anecdotal theater sales suggest a Thursday preview number in the same vicinity as the $5.7M brought in by Detective Pikachu, which should translate to a opening at least in the mid 50’s. With the Memorial Day weekend holiday ahead, Wick should once again see a multipler in the 3.0 range as long as word of mouth remains strong among audiences.
Internationally, the Wick films have largely collected the same take as seen domestically—the first made $45.7M overseas and the second accumulated $79.5M—and I would expect the same here. It is worth noting that the overseas distribution of Chapter 2 had several missteps including late release dates and unusually low screen counts which does not appear to be the case this go around.
| Previews | $5.8M | |
|---|---|---|
| Friday/Opening Day | $16.8M/$22.6M | |
| Saturdaay | $22.2M | +32.1%/-1.8% |
| Sunday | $15.5M | -30.2% |
| Domestic Opening | $60.3M | |
| International Opening | $54.4M | |
| Worldwide Opening | $114.7M | |
| Domestic Total | $175.4M | |
| International Total | $163.0M | |
| Worldwide Total | $338.4M |
The sequel (no, that isn’t a joke) to 2017’s A Dog’s Purpose—which grossed $18.2M on opening weekend—A Dog’s Journey is coming in softer than expected, with presales down substantially even from A Dog’s Way Home ($11.3M opening). Purpose made $140.5M overseas thanks to an incredible $88.2M in China, and Universal is likely hoping to secure a release date in the Middle Kingdom soon.
Early signs are also not giving a positive outlook on the YA romance The Sun Is Also a Star, which is looking to debut in the $5M-$7M range. Warner Bros. is almost certainly looking for higher, in the lower to mid teens, and it’s possible the lack of a major female driven picture this month could drive it higher, but so far sparks of activity are not present.
Looking to relinquish a three week reign over the box office, Avengers: Endgame will nevertheless try to hold a bit better than its predecessor (52.6% drop), which faced the $125M opening of Deadpool 2 during its comparable weekend. Endgame’s weekday numbers have now fallen behind Infinity War’s, and along with the continued frontloading exhibited, it seems another 50% drop is in order. Hardly a reason to fret, as it will still become the second highest grossing film domestically by passing Avatar, and looks to hit $2.6B worldwide.
The case of Detective Pikachu’s second weekend drop could prove to be a tough one to crack, So far, weekdays results have been solid for the videogame adaptation and could be suggestive of decent legs in the month ahead. On the other hand, this could be indicative of the film still not appealing to family audiences to the degree that was expected, and it being supported by older fans of the games. I’m splitting the difference here with a 50% drop, though I would not be shocked to see it go substantially different in either direction.
| Weekend | Drop | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum | $60,300,000 | N/A | |
| Avengers: Endgame | $31,100,000 | -50.9% | |
| Detective Pikachu | $27,200,000 | -50.0% | |
| A Dog's Journey | $9,700,000 | N/A | |
| The Hustle | $5,500,000 | -57.7% | |
| The Sun Is Also a Star | $5,500,000 | N/A | |
| The Intruder | $3,800,000 | -47.2% | |
| Long Shot | $3,600,000 | -42.6% | |
| Poms | $2,100,000 | -60.8% | |
| UglyDolls | $1,900,000 | -54.2% | |
| Breakthrough | $1,500,000 | -41.9% | |
| Tolkien | $1,000,000 | -54.5% |