Welcome to The Box Office Report where we break down the weekend in film from a purely numerical standpoint. This weekend the box office had a bit of a surprise at number one, another movie keeps making history, and a whole lot of other shenanigans are going down in the top ten. So let’s go ahead and dive into this weekend’s estimates!
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum released to an estimated $57 million and can anyone who expected this to raise their hand? I wouldn’t expect many of you anticipated this big of a release for the action flick. Parabellum has brought in more than the first John Wick film’s entire domestic run ($43 million) and is well on its way to surpassing the run of John Wick Chapter 2 ($92 million). Also of note for this film is that the overseas gross has already surpassed what John Wick and John Wick Chapter 2 was able to achieve. The film is sitting at a fantastic $149 million worldwide right now. Given what we know of the performance of the first two films, they both had around a three times multiplier for their opening weekends, Parabellum has a chance at hitting over $150 million in the domestic box office but I don’t see that happening. We’re in the middle of period of where there are high profile releases coming out each weekend. I think Parabellum can beat out John Wick: Chapter 2 but not by much. The film doesn’t have much in the way of competition so this will be something to monitor the next few weeks. Parabellum is going to be a success but it’ll be fun to see if the film is the ceiling for the franchise when it comes to box office.
Avengers: Endgame ($770 million) has officially passed Avatar ($760 million) as the second highest grossing film domestically of all time. I remember seeing the hopes and whispers that the film would pass The Force Awakens’ all time domestic total ($936 million) but the film was just far too front loaded. I think the chances of another film coming close to The Force Awakens won’t happen for a long time but this is a dangerous assumption to make, especially since inflation will always be a factor. Endgame is also over the $2.6 billion mark, which means it holds the second highest total for a film worldwide of all time. It made somewhere north of $70 million globally this weekend and is still $174 million away from tying Avatar’s record $2.78 billion. I think we have a small chance of the film floating to $2.8 billion. But who would have thought that ten years after Avatar shattered the box office that we’d be talking about a film that could rival it? It’s a crazy concept to think about!
Pokemon Detective Pikachu is currently the fourth highest grossing video game adaptation of all time. By the end of its run I do believe it’ll settle for second place as it is still, unfortunately, too niche to beat Lara Croft: Tomb Raider’s $131 million. Wait, I know Angelina Jolie was in her prime for that film but a 2001 film based on Tomb Raider is the crowning achievement for films based on video games? It’s a tough shell to crack, if I’m being honest. The medium is just hard to adapt and aren’t set up to succeed very well. Detective Pikachu had a budget of $150 million which is similar to films like Black Panther or Captain Marvel. The CGI for the film had to cost a lot plus the marketing so I’m concerned about how profitable the film will be (although I’m sure merchandise sales are through the roof!). The film currently has $206 million worldwide. I’m a fan of Pokemon, and video games as a whole, so I wanted this film to do well but the returns on the film just don’t look too great.
I am impressed at how well a low budget thriller like The Intruder has performed. Any time that a studio can make back triple the budget of a film is usually excellent. I’m unsure of what the budget for The Hustle was but it seems to have made a decent amount back, and found more of an audience overseas, with $51 million globally. Long Shot was a movie I was rooting for, similar to The Upside, in that I’m a fan of Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron. The trailers showed a lot of chemistry between the two. I’ve heard this film is vastly underrated though I’ve yet to see it. These three films are similar to all kinds of films we see sitting in the top ten at any point of the year, though. Comedies and thrillers just don’t have a huge draw these days. Did you know that A Dog’s Journey is part of a franchise? Two years ago A Dog’s Purpose released. It made $205 million worldwide. A Dog’s Journey also opened with $10 million less than A Dog’s Purpose ($18 million). Don’t confuse it with Sony’s release earlier this year, A Dog’s Way Home, like I totally did. Yeah, it seems like people aren’t seeing the connection due to bad marketing or something. The Sun Is Also A Star is the most recent young-adult book adaptation to release and flop. I got nothing else on this one. I will not speak about Poms.
I like to take a week to week look at the top domestic and worldwide grosses for the current year. It’s normally fun to look back at what changed towards the end of the year. Currently I don’t see any movie outside of the top ten besides John Wick 3 making the list for a brief period of time. It’s also amazing at how top heavy the list is. Disney has the top two with no question (and has over $1 billion with just those two films). I’m still sour about The LEGO Movie 2. I think by the end of the year Disney will have at least four of the top five (Endgame, Star Wars IX, The Lion King, Captain Marvel) with Spider-Man: Far From Home rounding out the top five. Aladdin is still a wild card for me.
All looks stunning for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Comic book fatigue does not seem to be happening yet! The Wandering Earth is a Chinese Sci-Fi film that did extremely well in its home country. I’ve heard that it’s about as good as a Netflix film. It’s nice seeing films like Alita: Battle Angel and Shazam! still sitting in the top ten for now.
That concludes this week’s Box Office Report! Join me back next week as we see how well (or poorly) Disney’s live-adaptation of Aladdin does! Also we will continue to follow John Wick 3, Avengers: Endgame, and others! If you have a movie you want me to touch on or have any feedback then please let me know! See you all next week!
