Earlier this year, Lionsgate’s homegrown action franchise John Wick, continued its remarkable growth with John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. The Keanu Reeves-led franchise’s latest and most successful installment to date delivered in a major way with over $326.5 million worldwide. Now that it’s on home video, John Wick: Chapter 3’s DVD and Blu-ray sales are really helping Lionsgate.
The home video and digital sales of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum was a principal driver of Lionsgate’s home entertainment revenue for the second quarter of the company’s fiscal year that ended on September 30. As reported by Media Play News, on Lionsgate’s fiscal call with shareholders, the company reported Q2 home entertainment revenue of $178.5 million, a 19.3% increase over the $149.6 million the division made in the same frame last year.
The home entertainment revenue consists of both the digital sales, as well as the sales of physical packaged media, including DVDs, Blu-rays and 4K Ultra HD Blu-rays. In an age when the death of physical media has been long heralded, Lionsgate’s packaged media revenue actually grew year-over-year in Q2, rising from $64.5 million last year to $65.2 million this year. Could John Wick kill someone with a Blu-ray disc? Almost certainly, but he also seems to be pretty good at selling them.
Digital revenue was particularly strong, jumping a huge 33.1% from $85.1 million last year to $113.3 million in 2019 (Fiscal Year 2020). In the earnings call, Lions Gate CEO Jon Feltheimer specifically cited the home entertainment performance of the latest John Wick film as exceeding the company’s expectations.
He also noted that the release of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum boosted the value of John Wick and John Wick: Chapter 2, seemingly indicating that the company saw an uptick in sales for the first two films in the franchise in ancillary markets coinciding with the release of the new movie. From that we could surmise that more and more people are discovering the John Wick franchise and catching up at home, which should help it continue to grow with each theatrical release.
The sales of John Wick: Chapter 3 played a significant role in the performance of the company’s home entertainment division and really helped out Lionsgate. It’s not often that we think of physical media making an impact but revenue actually grew for Lionsgate year over year, in part thanks to Mr. Wick.
Jon Feltheimer also mentioned to shareholders that Lionsgate is developing future chapters in the John Wick universe, including of course John Wick: Chapter 4. This all indicates that the John Wick property is seen as especially valuable to Lionsgate and one that has a bright future ahead of it. Pretty remarkable considering it started as a $20 million non-franchise action film.
John Wick: Chapter 4 opens in theaters on May 21, 2021. While we wait for that, check out the biggest movies hitting next year in our 2020 Release Schedule.
