‘John Wick: Chapter 3’ Puts Keanu Reeves Back on Top at the Box Office

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/movies/john-wick-chapter-3-box-office.html

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LOS ANGELES — The third “John Wick” movie arrived to stronger-than-expected ticket sales, returning Keanu Reeves to the top of the box-office chart for the first time in 11 years and giving Lionsgate a much-needed shot in the arm.

“John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum,” which finds the title’s super-assassin (Reeves) on the run from other contract killers, collected about $57 million at theaters in the United States and Canada over the weekend, according to Comscore. The R-rated Lionsgate series has grown remarkably more powerful with each installment: “John Wick: Chapter 2” had $30 million in initial ticket sales in 2017, improving on the $15 million that “John Wick” collected over its first three days in 2014.

That kind of audience expansion — extremely rare — is a dream result for Lionsgate, which has been struggling to turn around its movie operation, in part because Netflix has started to crank out the type of low- and mid-budget films in which Lionsgate has long specialized. Why go to theaters to see these diversions when Netflix is pumping them into your living room?

[Read our review of “John Wick: Chapter 3” and check out the series’ best action scenes.]

Last year, Lionsgate released 19 movies through various labels and took in a total of $379 million in North America, its worst showing since 2007. Lionsgate’s most recent releases, “Hellboy” and “Long Shot,” were both bombs. Tyler Perry delivered a hit in March with “A Madea Family Funeral,” but it was the last film that Mr. Perry intends to supply to Lionsgate, ending a 14-year run. He has a new alliance with Paramount.

Lionsgate said on Sunday that “John Wick: Chapter 3” collected an additional $35 million in partial release overseas. The film received strong reviews from most critics. David Gross, who runs Franchise Entertainment Research, a movie consultancy, said the results put the series “on outstanding footing going forward” and said it was now “an elite action thriller franchise.”

“John Wick: Chapter 3,” which stars Halle Berry in a supporting role, cost an estimated $75 million to make and roughly $40 million to market. The last time Reeves had a No. 1 opening was in 2008 with “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”

Two other new wide-release movies sputtered in their debuts. (See: the Netflix effect.) “A Dog’s Journey,” an Amblin sequel that was released by Universal, collected $8 million in North America, or about 56 percent less than “A Dog’s Purpose” had in its first weekend in 2017. “A Dog’s Purpose” was a surprise hit, taking in a total of $205 million and spawning a boomlet in soft-edged dog movies. (Another one, “The Art of Racing in the Rain,” will arrive from Disney in August.)

In a wipeout, “The Sun Is Also a Star,” a low-budget romantic drama starring Yara Shahidi and Charles Melton, was booked into more than 2,000 theaters by Warner Bros. and only managed $2 million in ticket sales.