John Wick 4 Shatters Multiple Records In One Day
John Wick: Chapter 4 had the highest opening day box office in franchise history, continuing the streak of each film opening higher than the last.
One thing moviegoers are often in agreement about is that Hollywood has too many sequels (something that the Star Wars sequel trilogy made abundantly clear). Every now and then, though, a franchise proves that its sequels can be not just as good as the original but better in many ways. And that seems to be the case with John Wick: Chapter 4: Deadline reports that the movie has shattered multiple records in a single day, including getting its best scores from audiences and having a bigger opening night than any previous film in the franchise.
The John Wick movies have been a hit with audiences from the very beginning, partly due to the sympathetic plot (who can’t sympathize with someone who will do anything to punish animal abusers?) and in part to the star power of Keanu Reeves. Still, you might expect that audiences would have franchise fatigue after enough sequels, but that’s certainly not the case. The latest movie got an “A” CinemaScore and 5 stars on Postrak, showing that fans are grooving with Reeves’ badass antics more than ever.
And that has translated to some major box office bank as well. For its debut on Friday night, John Wick: Chapter 4 pulled in a cool $29.4 million; that’s the biggest opening night the franchise has ever had. And it’s showing no signs of slowing down: this sequel is on track to earn $70.6 million by the end of the weekend.
John Wick: Chapter 4 is also generating solid word-of-mouth among fans who have already seen it. PostTrak keeps track of how many fans who have seen a movie would give it a “definite” recommendation to others, and this latest sequel has 82 percent of fans saying they would definitely recommend it. The last John Wick film “only” had 75 percent give it a definite recommendation (which is still a very high number), and it took this sequel no time at all to wow audiences in ways that the former film did not.
One reason, perhaps, for John Wick: Chapter 4 being so successful is that it managed to appeal to diverse audiences without making diversity part of its marketing. For example, tracking shows that audiences for this film over the weekend were 32 percent Caucasian, 28 percent Latino and Hispanic, 19% Black, and 21 percent Asian/other. If Hollywood was looking for someone who appeals to all audiences, they found it in Keanu Reeves (or, in the parlance of The Matrix, “he’s the one”).
Of course, nobody had more confidence in John Wick: Chapter 4 being a success than Lionsgate Films and its CEO, Jon Feltheimer. Back in 2020, he casually mentioned that the studio was already working on John Wick: Chapter 5 long before the fourth movie was even released. All of this has us remember Reeves’ often-memed dialogue from the first film: people keep asking if Reeves is back in the game, and based on the insane opening success of this fourth film in the franchise, yeah…we’re thinking he’s back.
