John Wick 3 finally gives Lionsgate a win with $57 million

People really like to see Keanu Reeves shoot/stab/punch people in the head repeatedly as John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum pulled in $57 million this weekend, beating out expectations and landing a massive box office for an R-rated film. The franchise, buoyed by positive word of mouth and strong reviews, is still rolling along just fine, and we’ll obviously be getting a sequel as soon as everyone has recovered from making this one. People were debating if Endgame would take the top spot this weekend, but John Wick stabbed that thought in the eye with a pencil by nearly doubling that film’s total take.

Lionsgate needed this one badly. The studio doesn’t really release mega-blockbusters since Hunger Games ended has seen multiple flops this year, including Hellboy and Long Shot. They’ll be thanking their lucky stars that this little action film they greenlit has turned into something much, much bigger.

Not that Endgame isn;t doing poorly or anything, thought it’s $29.5 million pull was a steep drop of 53%. The movie just topped Avatars total domestic cume with $770 million in total. That puts it in second place in all time box office domestically, behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which it now looks like it won’t surpass without a generous rebound in the coming weeks. However, it still has a chance to be the number one global film as it’s only $173 million away from Avatars $2.78 global box office. 

Pretty much everything else under-performed this weekend. YA adaptation The Sun is Also a Star made only $2.6 million as films in this genre continue to lose money for studios. I think we’re seeing the YA trend start to die off for now, unless it’s on Netflix. The kids don’t go to theaters (said in old man voice). 

1. John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum – $57,025,000
2. Avengers: Endgame – $29,411,000
3. Pokémon Detective Pikachu – $24,815,000
4. A Dog’s Journey – $8,000,000
5. The Hustle – $6,080,788
6. The Intruder – $4,025,000
7. Long Shot – $3,400,000
8. The Sun is Also a Star – $2,600,000
9. Poms – $2,090,000
10. UglyDolls – $1,600,000