Can ‘John Wick’ 4 perform and attract buyers for Lionsgate?
March 24, 2023·6 min
This short Hollywood Breakdown segment opens with Kim Masters and Puck's Matt Belloni framing John Wick 4 as critical to Lionsgate's long search for a buyer. Belloni notes the original John Wick grossed under 100 million while the third crossed 300 million, turning it into a stealth franchise. They argue media buyers prize renewable IP and walk through Lionsgate's 2025 slate of John Wick, Saw, and a new Hunger Games as evidence of a buyer pitch. Masters counters with the counter-example of Everything Everywhere All at Once, which cleared 100 million and won Best Picture as a wholly original film. They revisit Lionsgate's mixed track record: La La Land grossing about 300 million and famously losing Best Picture in the 17-second mix-up, and the first Knives Out, whose sequels they lost to Netflix because they could not match the price. Belloni sketches the broader Lionsgate picture: the film studio is not the prime asset, with the Starz streaming service and the Lionsgate Television arms-dealer production business carrying the company. The back half turns to the star economics of John Wick. Masters says Keanu Reeves is doing what old-school stars used to do by riding one big franchise so he can fund his other interests, comparing it to Matt Damon mixing Bourne with The Talented Mr. Ripley. She and Belloni note Harrison Ford is back in an Indiana Jones plus two TV shows, and Tom Cruise has another Mission Impossible. Belloni's closing point is that there are almost no stars under 30 or even 40 today who can reliably open a movie, which is why Keanu still anchors the Lionsgate slate.
