“Ballerina” opened much closer to “John Wick: Chapter 2,” which pulled in $30.4 million on opening weekend before finishing its run with $174.3 million globally. Unfortunately, with a $90 million price tag (before marketing), Lionsgate was depending on this one playing closer to “John Wick: Chapter 3” ($56.8 million opening and $328.3 million worldwide).
The good news is that audience members who did turn up really liked the film, with “Ballerina” earning an A- CinemaScore and a 93% audience approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The critic score is less great, currently sitting at 75%, but that’s still good and, as we’ve seen time and time again, word of mouth from audiences is what matters most. Under normal circumstances, we could expect good legs in the coming weeks. Unfortunately, a deluge of big releases including “How to Train Your Dragon,” “Materialists,” “28 Years Later,” “Elio,” “F1,” and “M3GAN 2.0” are all coming down the pipeline.
All of that competition is going to make this a steep uphill battle for Lionsgate’s first theatrical “John Wick” spin-off. To profit in theaters, it probably needs to make closer to $300 million worldwide than $200 million. At this rate, it will be lucky to crack the latter.
Meanwhile, Lionsgate has several other “John Wick” spin-offs in the works, including one centered on Donnie Yen’s Caine and an anime showcasing Mr. Wick’s impossible task, which has only ever been alluded to in the movies. There’s also “John Wick 5.” The good news is two of those are Reeves-heavy. The bad news is Reeves can’t do this forever, and the hope was to expand this universe beyond a single assassin.
It appears as though there are limitations to that idea, as this universe was built on one man’s good name. That’s not to say Lionsgate can’t make more spin-offs, it’s just that it will need to be more cautious with the budgets and hope that it can build interest in these films, even if Reeves isn’t in them. In the early going at least, this was at best a disappointment and at worst a death mark for the larger franchise.
“Ballerina” is now playing in theaters.