John Wick Box Office: Beloved Hitman Takes Out Avengers: Endgame

You can't win the weekend box office forever. Even E.T., which somehow won the weekend box office sixteen different times, was eventually defeated. After surviving a close race with Detective Pikachu last weekend, Avengers: Endgame came into this weekend a bit beaten up, and John Wick 3 took full advantage, topping $57M in its debut weekend and almost doubling up Captain America and friends, which slipped to number two for the first time after winning its initial three weekends.

You can check out the full weekend box office results, including those for other newcomers A Dog's Journey and The Sun Is Also A Star below...

The big story here, of course, is John Wick 3. The previous two installments of the movie definitely had nice little runs at the box office, but round three almost doubled the weekend opening of round two, per Box Office Mojo. That's definitely a sign of a franchise trending in the right direction. Whether there will be a Chapter 4 is still unclear (info here WITH SPOILERS), but there's still the spinoff rolling forward over at Starz and it's hard to imagine Hollywood deciding to pass on a cash cow. As such, I'd expect to see another film too, whether it's a direct sequel or a spinoff.

Obviously, we should all tip our caps to Avengers: Endgame, as well. The film may not have won a historically significant number of weekends, but it'll go down as one of the highest grossing movies of all-time. That's ultimately a lot more important than winning a fourth weekend, which is as much related to competition as it is to absolute popularity. Obviously, the natural question moving forward is where the MCU goes from here and what the new normal as far as box office grosses might be. I don't think anyone at the Mouse House will be expecting numbers like this anytime soon, but it remains to be seen whether franchises like Black Panther will be able to eclipse their prior entries now that the MCU isn't directly building toward a clear climax.

All involved with Detective Pikachu should be happy with the film's solid second weekend, as well. Fans are already speculating on what Pokemon movies they'd like to see next, and it now seems certain we'll see another movie with a sizeable budget in the near future, which is the entire goal of trying to launch a franchise. Now whether that movie will include Pikachu or Ryan Reynolds is anyone's guess, but Detective Pikachu still deserves all the credit for proving enough people are invested in Pokemon to make a $100M+ budget a reasonable expense.