FROM THE WORLD OF JOHN WICK: BALLERINA | THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME openings | Where we are now | June 6 to 8, 2025 weekend
Opening weekend box office, charts and commentary.
The current weekend: June 6 to June 8, 2025
1) From the World of John Wick: Ballerina opening
- This is a weak opening for an action thriller spin-off. The weekend figure is below average, and the est. -65% drop from the last John Wick opening is steep.
Action spin-offs consistently open well below the previous episode’s opening (on average, -46% below). That’s how they perform at the box office. Among the 13 action spin-offs before this one, none of them opened close to the previous episode.
- The movie itself is well-received: Critics' reviews are very good and the audience score is excellent (an A- CinemaScore). Audiences are enthusiastic about the movie, they just aren’t attending in big numbers:
* The action spin-off average includes female and male leads, and ensemble casts. The average represents all spin-offs — it’s a fair standard. The type of cast makes very little difference here; all of the spin-offs drop in their openings.
The John Wick franchise
- The John Wick series has been a roaring success. The first film started modestly in 2014, finishing with $86m worldwide, but from there each of the sequels has grown in giant leaps. There's been no misstep, no ups & downs — only up.
Critics' reviews have been outstanding every time and the audience scores went from good to great (from B, to A-, to A-, to an A CinemaScore):
- This isn't among the biggest action series, but it ranks in the top-10. What’s impressive are its consistency and growth. The last episode ($440m worldwide, 57.5% from overseas, 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and an A CinemaScore) was superb.
So spinning off from John Wick is a tall order, especially following #4, which was so successful. Ballerina is holding on to around a third of that opening, and that’s a substantial loss of the audience.
2) The Phoenician Scheme opening
- This is a solid opening for a Wes Anderson comedy, and for original comedies in general — it’s about average on both counts. Mr. Anderson is a critics' darling. This time, reviews are excellent, although not quite as enthusiastic as for his previous pictures. However, the audience score is lukewarm (a B- CinemaScore).
There's a healthy overseas audience for the filmmaker's work, not just in Europe but depending on the picture, in Japan, Russia and Latin America (how’s that for cross-cultural). That separates these movies from most American comedies, which struggle abroad — you can see it below:
- With solid foreign numbers and a reasonable production budget (est. $30m), this American-German co-production from Anderson's American Empirical Pictures and Steven Rails's Indian Paintbrush should be profitable.
Where we are now
- As noted on Wednesday, the box office has been tracking well ahead of last year, and recently it’s been within -10% of the pre-pandemic average, but challenges lay ahead — here.
Over the next two weeks, How to Train Your Dragon/live-action, 28 Years Later and Disney/Pixar's original Elio are going to set the June pace, before Jurassic World and Superman take over in early July. Comparisons with previous years are going to get tougher.
- This Wednesday we'll do a mid-year update on horror films. 2025 is back-loaded, but there have been several positive surprises in the first half. With many of the biggest titles yet to open, it's going to be another strong year for the genre.
Our last two posts were:
THE WEDNESDAY CHARTS | May and 2025 year-to-date box office summary | June preview | June 4, 2025 here
THE KARATE KID: LEGENDS | BRING HER BACK openings | Where we are now | May 30 to June 1, 2025 weekend here
Correction: Last weekend we quoted the production cost of Bring Her Back as $4.5 million. That’s the cost of Danny and Michael Philippou’s first movie, Talk to Me. The estimated cost of Bring Her Back is $15m to $20m. We still consider last weekend’s $7.1m opening good, with excellent reviews and audience scores. It’s been corrected online here. Just one too many numbers moving through the brain. Apologies.