'Ballerina' Is Playing Like a 'John Wick' Movie... At Least on PVOD
The Ana de Armas-led spin-off is (thus far) continuing the pattern of Lionsgate’s Keanu Reeves-led action flicks punching above their weight in the post-theatrical ecosystem.
Sources have whispered into my ear (although louder than they needed to since I was wearing my hearing aids, dammit) that my post-theatrical hopes for Ballerina are thus far coming to fruition. To wit, the Ana de Armas-led spin-off from the John Wick flicks (set between Parabellum and Chapter 4) has topped the various VOD charts (namely Prime Video, Apple TV and Fandango) for the last two weeks despite competition from Marvel’s Thunderbolts*. As of this moment, it’s currently still tops on iTunes and #2 behind Minecraft on Fandango and Final Destination: Bloodlines on Prime Video. The only tidbit I was able to uncover was that its initial performance in the post-theatrical ecosystem was currently outperforming titles with double the film’s respective ($57 million in North America and $132 million worldwide) theatrical totals.
That’s not to say it’s magically going to become a smash hit or justify Ballerina and the Big Balloon Adventure in summer 2027. But nor is it remotely surprising. While Lionsgate surely hoped for better grosses, they also knew to what extent the four Keanu Reeves-led flicks over-indexed in their post-theatrical runs. John Wick earned $43 million domestically and $88 million worldwide in 2014, while the sequels earned $92 million/$171 million in 2017, $171 million/$322 million in 2019 and $187 million/$447 million in 2019, respectively. Beyond the unprecedented movie-by-movie upswing, all four punched way above their weight class in physical media sales. Just in terms of DVD and Blu-ray sales, courtesy of The Numbers, they indeed earned a lot more in DVD and Blu-ray sales than movies with higher profiles and far more in theatrical earnings.