Well, look at that, a movie at the No. 1 spot at the U.S. box that isn’t about adults flying around in tights. Weird!

Last weekend’s No. 1, Chad Stahelski’s John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum (overly complex title alert!), sold $57 million in the U.S. and $149 million worldwide over its first three days of release while receiving an aggregate critics’ score of 74/100 on Metacritic.

Keanu Reeves returns in the title roll, and is joined by Common (swoon), Halle Berry (swoooooon!), Ian McShan, Jason Mantzoukas, John Leguizamo, Lance Reddick, Laurence Fishburne, Anjelica Houston, and countless character actors whose faces you’ll likely recognize. Cast of the year? Maybe!

I somehow have not yet seen a John Wick film, but I intend to, as they look like great, dumb action fun. Since I’ve not yet put eyes to John Wick 3, here’s what The New York Post’s Johnny Oleksinski had to say about the film:

“The John Wick action series doesn’t get bogged down in such silly trivialities as character development, plot, dialogue, morals, or any of the usual rubrics most films follow. Instead, these fun flicks are just loosely connected, extremely violent fight scenes starring Neo from The Matrix. And why the hell not?”

A bit reductive to call Reeves “Neo from The Matrix”? Sure. But you get the point. Big. Dumb. Fun.

Also at the Box

The inevitable Avengers: Endgame dropped to the No. 2 spot at last weekend’s box, with another $29 million in sales. So far, in just 24 days of release, Endgame has sold $771 million in the U.S. and $2.6 billion worldwide. So far the flick is the No. 2 grossing domestic and worldwide film of all-time, behind Avatar worldwide by $174 million and behind The Force Awakens domestically by $166 million.

I’m pretty sure Endgame will pass Avatar for the No. 1 spot worldwide, but that domestic mark by The Force Awakens seems untouchable. Either way, what we learn from this whole Endgame era is that we are nowhere close to the end of this men-in-tights era at the movies. Oh well.

Pokémon Detective Pikachu took the No. 3 spot at the U.S. box over its second weekend of release with another $24.8 million in sales, upping the children’s flick’s 10-day sales total to $94 million in the U.S. and $206 million worldwide. The film, which was directed by Rob Letterman, features the vocal talent of Ryan Reynolds, Suki Waterhouse, Justice Smith, Ken Watanabe and Bill Nighy. I think we’re going to get a lot of these Pikachu films, friends.

Family film A Dog’s Journey and Anne Hathaway comedy The Hustle took the No. 4 and No. 5 spot, respectively, selling $8 million and $6 million.

The Hustle, which also stars Rebel Wilson, has now made just over $50 million worldwide in its first 10 days of release. That’s way, way, way below expectations. That being said, why did United Artists think releasing one of their flagship 2019 films during the Endgame era was a good idea. We’ll have to write this one up as a counter programming miscalculation, me thinks.

I’m sad to report that the amazing new comedy classic, Jonathan Levine’s Long Shot, starring Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen, continued to bomb, selling just $3.4 million over its third weekend, bringing the film’s 17-day domestic sales total to just $25.7 million. Oof. This one was supposed to get word-of-mouth and pull in The Hangover numbers. But nope, not while the Men In Tights are still getting busy! Look for Long Shot to have a rental/streaming/cable TV legacy over the next few years. (It’s very, very good.)

New this Week

Another big, huge, probably dominate franchise film, Disney’s live-action adaptation of Aladdin, will almost certainly open to a huge box office this coming weekend. The film features Will Smith as the Blue Genie while Naomi Scott (Jasmine), Mena Massoud (Aladdin), Nasim Pedrad (Dalia), and Marwan Kenzari (Jafar) co-star.

Written and directed by Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Sherlock Holmes), Aladdin looks to be incredibly well made and probably a whole lot of fun at the movies. There’s an outside chance that this one is a laughing stock and bombs, but I doubt it.

Look out for Ritchie’s next proper film, The Gentlemen, about a British drug lord to attempts to sell off his drug empire to a dynasty of an Oklahoma billionaire. Should be very good.

Also out everywhere is horror flick Brightburn and comedy Booksmart, the latter which was produced by Megan Ellison, directed by Olivia Wilde and stars Beanie Feldstein, Kaitlyn Dever, Lisa Kudrow, Will Forte, Jason Sudeikis and Billie Lourd in what is effectively being promoted as “female Superbad”. Looks really fun, if probably very obvious, to me.

Also be on the lookout for two smaller films, India’s Most Wanted and The Proposal, both of which look very promising on paper.