Box Office: ‘John Wick 4’ Earns Franchise-Best $8.9 Million in Previews
John Wick is back — for the fourth time — and heading toward a franchise record opening with “John Wick: Chapter 4,” the latest installment in the gun-slinging, knife-throwing action franchise. Lionsgate’s fourth entry opened with $8.9 million in previews at the domestic box office.
“John Wick: Chapter 4” is on track to surpass the third movie’s record-setting opening weekend with an expected bow between $65 million and $70 million. Impressively, each of the films has substantially increased its opening weekend release after release. The original “John Wick” opened with $14 million in 2014, followed by 2017’s “John Wick: Chapter 2” ($30.4 million) and 2019’s “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum” ($56.8 million). The Thursday preview hauls have similarly grown over the years; “John Wick” had $950,000 in domestic previews; “John Wick 2” had $2.2 million and “John Wick 3” had $5.9 million.
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The fourth installment boasts the largest price tag, costing more than $100 million to produce, but it should finish with the highest total of the series. “John Wick 3” ended its run with $328.3 million globally, followed by “John Wick 2” with $174.3 million and the original with $86.1 million. As the only new major release this weekend, “John Wick 4” should have no trouble beating last week’s box office champ, “Shazam: Fury of the Gods.”
In the latest movie, Keanu Reeves’ master assassin returns to take down the evil High Table crime syndicate for good, and he must face the Marquis Vincent de Gramont, played by Bill Skarsgard, to win his freedom. Along the way, Wick also fights the blind swordsman Caine (Donnie Yen) and the mysterious tracker Mr. Nobody (Shamier Anderson), who shares Wick’s love for dogs. Rina Sawayama and Hiroyuki Sanada also join the “John Wick” universe alongside returning stars Ian McShane, Laurence Fishburne and Lance Reddick, who tragically died last week at the age of 60.
Director Chad Stahelski and Reeves paid tribute to Reddick ahead of the movie’s premiere.
“Lance is a people person, a special artist, a gentleman of grace and dignity,” Reeves said at the Los Angeles premiere. “It’s just really something special, every time he stepped on set, to watch the passion he had for his work. It’s really easy to work with him.”
“I had Lance in my life almost 10 years,” Stahelski said. “Although that was done over the course of four films, we’ve worked together on other things. I just got to be happy and be proud of the fact that I got to spend so much time with him. We’re going to miss him.”
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