John Wick 4 Scores Franchise-Best Opening

 With the 2023 theatrical slate still failing to deliver the hoped-for post-pandemic recovery, and a dismal performance from the latest superhero installment, it’s nice to see some good news for the beleaguered Box Office. The John Wick franchise started in 2014 as a small, reasonably cheap movie that gained surprising popularity, and the franchise now seems to be truly hitting its stride with both domestic and international audiences as the fourth iteration hits the big screen. Blake & Wang P.A entertainment attorney, Brandon Blake, unpacks this new record.

Brandon Blake

Opening Weekend Box Office Boom

John Wick: Chapter 4 looks well set to be the franchise’s best earner to date, with a fantastic opening run. Thursday previews netted it a huge $8.9M, leading industry insiders to predict that it may reach a $70M opening weekend. 

They fell short, with the film pulling in a rather dazzling $73.5M domestic opening weekend seemingly effortlessly. Internationally, it has pulled in a further $64M, for a $137.5M global total in its opening weekend. This puts it well ahead of the third installment’s $56.8M domestic takings. When you consider that the first film opened to $14.4M (and that was considered pretty good for its potential), that’s a rather meteoric rise. Sure, it’s not  Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’s $106M- but the film also took half the budget to bring to life. Plus it was released with an R-rating, not the typical recipe for Box Office success.

An Unusual Contender

On top of a franchise-best opening, the film is also managing to hold steady at 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, the best of all the John Wick films. And let’s not forget its mammoth run time of 3 hours, which also leads to reduced showings. It’s rare indeed for a film to manage to keep audience appeal over such a protracted run time, with only Avatar 2 daring to command such a lengthy run time in recent years.


While there’s releases scheduled for later in the year that will doubtless eclipse it, there's certainly a lot to celebrate for the franchise and Box Office alike in this unexpected victory. Let’s hope to see many more in 2023.


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