Weekend Wrap-Up: John Wick Wins Weekend, Can’t Stop Deadpool from Killing 2019
May 21, 2019
The overall weekend was about as good as anyone could hope for with John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum topping expectations with $56.82 million. This mostly made up for A Dog’s Journey and The Sun is Also A Star, both of which missed low expectations. However, the overall weekend still fell 12% when compared to last weekend at $147 million and this is 30% lower than the same weekend last year. To be fair, almost no one was expecting this year to match last year, because last year Deadpool 2 opened. Year-to-date, 2019 is still behind 2018 by a 9.2% or $410 million margin at $4.03 billion to $4.44 billion. Fortunately, if Aladdin does as well next weekend as many are expecting, then this losing streak will end after just one week.
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum had by far the best opening in the franchise debuting with $56.82 million over the weekend. This is more than the first film earned in total and it will top the second’s domestic run during the upcoming weekend. Furthermore, its legs could be relatively long. The film earned amazing reviews and an A minus from CinemaScore, which should partially compensate for being a sequel. Additionally, next weekend is a long weekend, so it should get help from that as well.
Avengers: Endgame was finally knocked out of top spot with $29.97 million over the weekend for a total of $771.37 million after four weeks of release. As previously mentioned, this was enough to push it ahead of Avatar on the all-time domestic chart. It will get to $800 million over the next weekend, but that will very likely be the last major milestone for the film, at least domestically.
Pokémon: Detective Pikachu was close behind with $25.11 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $94.30 million. The film will crack $100 million soon and could top its $150 million production budget domestically. It will certainly break even early in its home market run and I suspect there will be plenty more films in this franchise going forward.
A Dog’s Journey missed expectations with an opening weekend of just $8.03 million. This is less than half of what A Dog’s Purpose opened with and worse still, this film will likely have shorter legs. It is a sequel after all and even though its reviews are significantly better than its predecessor’s reviews were, the Sequel Effect tends to override this.
The Hustle came within a rounding error of expectations with $6.14 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $23.20 million. The film will get to $30 million next weekend, but $40 million could be out of reach. Since the film likely cost around $40 million to make, it will need help internationally and on the home market to break even. That said, the film struggled just to get a release date, so coming close to breaking even would be a relief after that.
The Sun is Also A Star bombed opening in eighth place with just $2.51 million in just over 2,000 theaters for a theater average of $1,212. The film’s reviews and its B minus from CinemaScore already suggested short legs, but opening below the Mendoza Line will also mean theater owners will be looking to drop the film as soon as they are contractually able to.
There were two films in the sophomore class that didn’t place in the top five, neither of which did well. Poms fell 59% to just $2.18 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $10.11 million. It could have made that much during its opening weekend and it still would have been seen as a disappointment by many. Likewise, Tolkien plummeted 67% to just $731,000 over the weekend for a two-week total of $3.77 million. It will very likely see its theater count evaporate this coming weekend.
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Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Avengers: Endgame, Aladdin, The Hustle, John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, The Sun is Also a Star, A Dog’s Journey, Poms, Tolkien, John Wick