First Trailer For Keanu Reeves’ ‘John Wick 3’ Goes To The Dogs

The musical choices are cute and the thing looks stylish as all hell, so this is pretty much what you’d expect from a teaser trailer for John Wick: Chapter 3. It is… odd how this franchise has been so closely associated with dogs. It’s not like Wick is some hardcore animal rescuer or what-have-you, it’s just that his late wife gave him a puppy and, like the day after her funeral, random gangsters broke into his house and killed that dog. Had the inciting incident for John Wick been the brutal murder of a wife, girlfriend or daughter, it would have been par for the course. We’re so used to macho action movies that fridge their female characters as a key plot point that merely fridging an animal becomes a defining feature of that franchise.

The big question facing John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is whether the “Keanu Reeves kills everyone, but it’s okay because he likes dogs and it still ridiculously gorgeous” franchise is the kind that peaks on the second go-around or ends its would-be trilogy even higher than the initial breakout sequel. For every Scream 3, there’s an X-Men: The Last Stand. For every Taken 3, there’s a Bourne Ultimatum. Of course, it’s entirely possible that John Wick 3 (sorry, not spelling out that Star Wars prequel-worthy title) does the Dark Knight Rises thing where it makes less in North America than its immediate predecessor but earns more overseas for a larger worldwide total. And since (slight spoilers), John Wick Chapter 2 essentially ended on the same narrative notes as The Dark Knight, such a result would be somewhat ironic.

Once again directed by Chad Stahelski (the first film’s other co-director, David Leitch, went off to make Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2 and Hobbs and Shaw), this third installment in Lionsgate’s surprise franchise picks up where the sequel left off, with John having broken the rules of his super-secret assassins club and been expelled from the treehouse with a price on his head. Lance Reddick, Laurence Fishburne and Ian McShane are back along with franchise newbies Halle Berry, Angelica Houston and Jason Mantzoukas. The first John Wick was a miraculous success story, with Lionsgate acquiring it and marketing it into a mainstream hit ($88 million on a $20m budget) in about five weeks. John Wick: Chapter 2 was a classic breakout sequel, playing off the first film’s leggy popularity and earning a $30m debut weekend and $171m global on a $40m budget.

If John Wick 3 plays like The Bourne Ultimatum, we’re looking at a cume of around $122 million domestic and $262m worldwide, which would be a monster win for all parties. A jump like Lethal Weapon 3 (which made slightly less in North America than Lethal Weapon 2 but 40% more worldwide) would give it a $240m global cume. But even a mere $31m debut weekend and $125m domestic finish would make it Keanu Reeves’ biggest non-Matrix domestic earner in raw grosses. The $350m global cume of Speed and the $266m cume of Something’s Gotta Give (which, at $124m domestic, is Reeves’ biggest non-Matrix grosser) seems like a best-case-scenario result. A finish between John Wick 2 ($171m) and the likes of Bram Stoker’s Dracula ($216m in 1992), Constantine ($231m in 2005) and The Day The Earth Stood Still ($233m in 2008) would be a win.

If it matters, Something’s Gotta Give was a supporting role alongside Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson. So anything above $231 million worldwide would make John Wick: Chapter 3 Keanu Reeves’ fifth-biggest global earner behind the Matrix trilogy ($463m in 1999, $742m in 2003 and $427m in 2003) and Speed ($350m in 1994). But that’s assuming that John Wick 3 acts like The Bourne Supremacy and not (offhand) Taken 3 or Scream 3 (a lot less in North America but about the same overseas), which in this case would still be a solid $150m-$160m domestic cume. Presuming they didn’t spend more than $55m on this threequel, that should be fine. John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum opens May 17, 2019., right in between Detective Pikachu and Aladdin and existing as the first big post-Avengers Endgame action movie. As always, we’ll see.