Box Office: ‘Ballerina’ Tops Friday With an Okay $11 Million Opening Day

Lionsgate’s Ana de Armas-led’ John Wick’ spin-off is opening on par -- sans inflation -- with ‘John Wick: Chapter 2,’ albeit with a budget closer to ‘John Wick: Chapter 3’.

Like last weekend’s Karate Kid: Legends, the domestic launch of Ballerina qualifies as a disappointment but not a disaster. Lionsgate’s first theatrical John Wick spin-off (which the studio’s marketing made very clear to an almost comical degree) topped the box office on Friday with $10.65 million. With decent reviews (75% fresh and 6.6/10 on Rotten Tomatoes) and thus-far solid audience scores (an A- from CinemaScore), we can expect a Fri-Sun launch of (presuming it legs out on par with Keanu Reeves’s various John Wick sequels and Charlize Theron’s Atomic Blonde) around $27 million. In a vacuum, this spin-off opening on par with the second Wick pic is pretty good, save for A) inflation and B) that this film cost closer to the $75 million spent on John Wick: Chapter 3 than the $40 million spent on John Wick: Chapter 2.