Weekend predictions: John Wick shooting for $75 million plus this weekend
March 24, 2023
John Wick: Chapter 4 will continue the remarkable run for the John Wick franchise by earning more on opening weekend than John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum, just as that movie beat the opening weekend of John Wick: Chapter Two, which had a better opening weekend than the original John Wick. It’s a rare franchise that manages to grow business with each new release, and an even rarer one that gets better reviews with each outing. But this is one of them. Exactly how much it’ll make this weekend remains a little uncertain, but things are looking very, very good.
First, here’s what our model thought of Chapter 4 going into the weekend:
As previously noted, each chapter in the franchise has opened more strongly than the one before it. In fact, the first John Wick came in behind horror movie Ouija on its opening weekend. Now other studios are so sure of the film’s success that they’ve given it a weekend to itself—how times have changed!
The model doesn’t take account of those kinds of factors, and instead assumes that a new installment in a franchise will do as well as the other movies before adjusting for theater counts, the strength of the market (which has declined to 74% thanks to the disappointing performance of Shazam! Fury of the Gods last weekend), and audience interest. It’s fair to say audience interest is sky high for this film, which boosted the pre-weekend prediction appreciably, to $43.2 million.
The Thursday preview makes it a virtual certainty that we will blow past $43.2 million this weekend…
R-rated action movies generally earn about 10 times their preview number over opening weekend. So John Wick: Chapter 4’s $8.9 million points towards a really big debut. If we take only the previews into account, the film should sail past $80 million. The model’s weighted-average prediction is $76.4 million, which would equate to a preview-to-weekend multiplier of 8.58. That’s a reasonable number, as relatively high previews for a sequel often indicates strong interest among a franchise’s core fans. Note in the table above how each installment in the John Wick franchise has had a lower multiplier than the one before.
We’ll learn more over the weekend about how well the movie has done when it comes to drawing in new fans. The excellent reviews and lack of competition mean it has a good shot at doing so.
Even if it does lose some pace, we’ll definitely see a franchise-best opening weekend, and a fantastic result for Lionsgate.
Here’s what that model thinks the top 10 will look like.
With Shazam! likely to take a tumble, the continued strength of Scream VI and Creed III are a big help to the market, and should keep the overall weekend well over $100 million.
One final note: the battle for tenth place will be between Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and Avatar: The Way of Water. The model thinks Puss in Boots will beat Avatar for the first time this weekend and stay in tenth place in its fourteenth weekend in theaters. If it does so, it will end Avatar’s 14-week top 10 run in the process. I think that little battle is a coin flip.
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Filed under: Weekend Preview, Avatar: The Way of Water, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, John Wick, John Wick: Chapter Two, John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum, John Wick: Chapter 4, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Creed III, Scream VI, John Wick