No need to bury the lead here, John Wick: Chapter 4 is having a killer weekend at the box office as it already netted a franchise best $8.9 million in Thursday night previews and even though the official weekend estimate for the film right now stands at $70 million, many (including us here at Joblo) believe this film will come in much higher when numbers are announced tomorrow.
Why is this movie hitting so hard with audiences? Well, first and foremost: it is good! Whether you listen to the aggregated 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes or the 97% audience score or perhaps we here at Joblo have earned your trust and the perfect 10/10 score from our own JimmyO is all you need to see. Of course if I may give my two cents: this movie is a must see in theaters. From the opening fist punch that makes your entire body shake from the Oscar worthy sound design and mix to the best use of a staircase since Joker danced his way down one, John Wick: Chapter 4 has earned the respect it is getting.
The franchise came from humble beginnings, launched in 2014 when Keanu Reeves was in a bit of a career slump, the original John Wick opened with a modest $14.4, finishing in second place to the horror film Ouija. The film had relatively small drops week to week but really exploded on home video which would lead the second to open with $30.4 million. By the time John Wick: Chapter 3- Parabellum rolled along in 2019, anticipation had grown exponentially, mainly due to the excellent cliffhanger ending of the second film, which would lead Chapter 3 to an impressive $56.8 million opening. And now, Chapter 4 is blowing all previous films out of the water, which is really insane when you consider how well fourquel’s general do at the box office (I.E they generally tank).
Second place is going to Shazam! Fury of the Gods taking a pretty sizable nose dive in its second weekend. As of right now the super hero sequel is expected to finish its second weekend under $10 million, representing a 70% drop off. Ouch! At this point will general audiences even embrace any new films in any sort of DC universe? Perhaps the best course of action would be to just focus on their Elseworlds line of films, which will see the continuations of the only recent DC films that have been worth our time (The Batman and Joker).
Third and fourth place will go to Scream VI with a projected $9 million while Creed III is looking to add around $8 million to its box office til. Right now fifth place looks to be the Adam Driver film 65 which is actually doing far better than I expected it would. Perhaps its low opening weekend take ($12.3 million) meant that smaller week to week drops were to be expected which is leading a third week take around $3 million.
Have you been able to see John Wick: Chapter 4 yet? If so, let us know what you thought of the film in the comments and don’t forget to check back tomorrow when we have our full run down of this weeks box office.