The past month or so has not been especially kind to franchise movies at the box office with movies like Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Dark Phoenix and Men in Black: International all failing to impress. One franchise film (outside of the MCU of course) that has found success and continues to do so is John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. The first film in 2019’s Year of Keanu continued its remarkable run this past weekend, passing a few more box office milestones.
The third film in the R-rated action series has passed milestones at the domestic box office, the worldwide box office and for franchise films. First of all, after dropping only 22% in its seventh weekend in release, John Wick: Chapter 3 earned another $3.175 million in North America. According to Forbes, that pushes the Keanu Reeves film past the $160 million milestone to $161.3 million.
For comparison, John Wick: Chapter 2 earned $92 million domestically and the first film in 2014 made just $43 million. So in the third film, this franchise has bested the previous two entries’ domestic totals by 75% and 274% respectively. That’s incredible growth even compared to modern superhero blockbusters and remarkable for a franchise that was built from scratch and didn’t benefit from any established source material or fanbase.
That 75% domestic growth from John Wick: Chapter 2 to John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum represents the second milestone the threequel passed for Keanu Reeves’ lovable hitman. For a movie series with at least three installments, John Wick now has the fifth-biggest domestic box office jump movie over movie from the second entry to the third.
Parabellum now sits behind only Once Upon a Time in Mexico (122%), Goldfinger(106%), Army of Darkness (94%) and Skyfall (81%). It also site ahead of Toy Story 3’s 69% growth over Toy Story 2. John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum should be around $165 million in domestic totals at the end of next weekend, but if it can get to $168 million it’ll topple the James Bond film Skyfall for the Number 4 spot.
Contrary to other action franchises, like Mission: Impossible and Fast & Furious, the John Wick films’ worldwide totals have been more heavily weighted towards the domestic box office. We’ll have to see if that changes and John Wick eventually breaks out overseas, but thanks to its late opening in South Korea, good for $4.78 million, Parabellum has now earned $142.3 million internationally.
Combined with its domestic haul, that’s enough to push John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum past $300 million worldwide. The film now sits at a cool $303.6 million worldwide and with the expectation that it could finish with around $325 million at its current rate.
In response to the various milestones Parabellum majestically galloped past, like Keanu riding a horse through New York City, Lionsgate Movie took to Twitter to say “That’s our guy! Congratulations to John Wick 3 on the milestone.” Lionsgate certainly has a lot to be proud of with this franchise which has proven one of the company’s most successful behind mega-hits like The Hunger Games franchise and The Twilight Saga.
Keanu Reeves has talked about how special it was for him to see John Wick 3 be so well-received, so these milestones should make the actor, who has brought much joy to people in 2019, feel pretty good.
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is now playing and John Wick: Chapter 4 is on the way. Check out our premiere guide to keep track of what else is headed to theaters this year.