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I know you guys are thinking it's obvious that if you increase the budget, you will most likely see higher returns. I agree. I just found it interesting how direct the relationship happened to be for the John Wick series and wanted to graph it.

My expert (and foolproof) analysis for John Wick 5: Budget 320 million, Gross 1.376 billion

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Data source: John Wick 1, John Wick 2, John Wick 3

Tools used: Canva

See, I don't think that that is something to be assumed; I'm sure plenty of films that throw more cash at their sequels didn't see a proportional increase?

Oh I know, I'm just messing around. After a while, studios start to get diminishing returns.

Also, my graph does not include marketing costs which can sometimes be larger than the budget and has a greater impact on how well the movie does at the box office.

True true.

Don't get me wrong, I know this is a fun post. I'm not here to be a "well akshually" guy.

The first john wick was incredible for doing so much with a low budget (especially for a stunt-heavy action movie).

And halves the quality of the story.

The third one had a story?

Infinite money glitch incoming

the third one had Halle Berry, which was all it needed.

I think number 4 will stop this trend. These movies, as much as I love #1, should've stopped.

Interesting it's nearly 4 times return each time, i wonder if the next one will be the same?

Because I watched this for the second time ever last night. The 2002 comedy “The Sweetest Thing” with Cameron Diaz was made for $43 million. That money in 2002 had a higher budget than the first two John Wick movies. All of this means relatively nothing other than the death of the Rom-Com and making an interesting story with smaller budget and production.

I mostly agree. The second one was bloated and essentially two different movies. But taking that info the third movie has expanded “the universe” of John Wick. We may not like it, but it pretty much took “The Fast and the Furious” franchise model and applied it quickly and more efficiently.

The histogram makes it tempting to draw the conclusion in the title. But we have a correlation v. causation question to work through before we can properly draw it.

I'd say the franchise popularity growth had a lot more to do with this than the budget.

Does the total budget include marketing spend?

Going to the movies to see romcoms is not a thing anymore.

I see a 400% return each time.

They say #5 is the last one.

But, but. They’re developing the Hotel and the female John Wick movies too.

Exactly, and not on that high of a budget.

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My rule of thumb is marketing costs = film budget

It also tracks with number of dogs

That's something that gets me is marketing is literally the single largest input into making a film

It looks like the more you increase the budget the worse the movie gets.

The John Wick movies are solid. One of the few franchises to never have a dull movie.

That's not how this works.

Correlation. Not causation.

Well thats not 100% true though. I think the big deal here is that John Wick was just so well done as an action movie and the story was interesting. They almost sell the idea that Keanu as John really is 'The Boogey Man'. The other side of the coin is that the increase from movie 1 to movie 2 in returns was mostly people wanting more of the story. They also did do pretty well at marketing it. So the budget has at least something to do with it.

Movie 3 for sure though was something people wanted. They wanted the continuation of the fight and breaking of the rules in the Continental.

So for sure in this instance (and I am sure in most movies that do numbers like the JW series) it think the increase in profits stems more from the success of the writing, acting and flow of the movie. Not really the budget. I would guess the budget of JW2 and JW3 are stemming more from the fact that they involved so many more people with large names into the movies and possibly a bit related to the effects. But thats a bigger breakdown that we likely don't have good data for.

Tbh john wick series never seemed like a series to watch for story to me. Tho i liked its story. Its a series to watch for pure action thats why i think they shouldnt do too many john wick's to avoid repetition.

Correlation ≠ causation…

This is stats 101...

The fan base is growing so they can expect a larger turn out and, therefore, more revenue… They use these estimates to more confidently invest in a bigger budget to please the larger crowd.

Come on guys… do better…

It would be clearer to plot just the delta, no?

I am waiting for John Constantine

John is the guy you send to kill the boogeyman, solid points

Does this account for inflation?

John wick was more popular when the 2nd came out than when the 1st came out. Hard to attribute all the gains to the movie’s budget without way more data and control groups.

At some point the diminish return will cut in.

Joan Wick

The real baba yaga

I’m pretty sure the post was meant to be a joke, the OP knows this isn’t an actual trend

The amount of people taking this post seriously makes me question society

well actcthually...

lol, yeah you're right but like, coulda said it in 100 less words:

"we know you're being sarcastic about "2x budget = 2x profit" but to add:

• wick series grew in popularity/awareness
• wick series storyline remained fun/exciting
• higher budget allowed for + exhilarating stunts"

boom, done.

What then pisses me off is that I'm a sound guy and when I ask more the answer is always there's no budget.

I would write and re-write things into less and less thought. However, the wording I chose was specific and thought out the way it was to make a point and defend it with understanding and thought.

When making a point without the thought its hollow. It doesn't get the point across properly and leaves everything up for interpretation.

Example:

>higher budget allowed for + exhilarating stunts"

This is not what I said. I said that it allowed for more people in the movie, it also allowed for bigger names to be used, and possibly more related to the effects of the movies.

Your extrapolation of the information isn't a complete thought but even if forced it would essentially work out to mean that it just give a bigger budget to CGI and other effects. Nothing about the cast itself or how large of names they are in acting. It also leaves out something we both didn't mention of including more locations so things like transporting certain items and renting time/gear for those locations.

Not everything can be properly boiled down into a few words and make sense. Nor can a few words extrapolate complex thought and understanding.

Words come without emotion and conveying information in them is hard.

oh god, it got longer 😳 lol, man, how does this person live and function. gotta be like a 14-16 yr-old range type of kid. my gooness mate. can relax on all that.

I didn't read but maybe 2 lines of the 1st one, and nothing at all of the 2nd book. out of maybe 100-200 people who glance at your 2 book-messages here, probably only around 2-3 will actually read them... more than 1-2 lines of em. it's a waste unless you're using them almost entirely for yourself.

It looks as though you have been the person to prove you are the 14-16 year old. Plenty of people read comments. Your small intellect just doesn't understand them. Maybe /r/dataisbeautiful isn't for the person who can't understand said data.

Hey disney, pay attention!

Let me introduce you to these magical things known as "scatter plots" which are great for demonstrating linear relationships between variables

Is this why they’re making number 4?

The first one is still my favorite.

The two next especially the third one went too far into weird shit and "rules", and "adjudicators" and crap. The 4th one looks even worse.

I wish they can go back to their roots for the 5th one, just a simple story.

To be able to create more with less money was what created a legend. I actually liked the first one more than the second and third.

John Wick movies are really fun. I don't really care about the story too much, I'm just here to see Keanu do cool moves and kill bad guys in cool ways. It's simple fun.

This chart has just starkly illustrated to me why movies that I like are increasingly hard to find. The wider public clearly significantly prefer the type of movie that I really don’t like, or at least are willing to spend more money to see them.

I’m not saying that they or I have better taste, just that the studios are obviously going to cater to the group that brings in more money, and unfortunately I’m not part of it.

Correlation not cause. But you said you're just messing around, so you probably already know that.

Imo the budget isn't simply a multiplicator for the revenue here. I'd say that because a previous movie was successful, they have a growing and already interested audience for the second movie and the success also encourages them (and allows them) to spend more on the sequel.

So in short the success of the previous movie and the growing audience cause both the bigger budget and the bigger revenue of the next (which makes the two correlated but not causal).

No wonder that they keep churning them out, seems like it's printing money.

I’m wondering if the budget is the total cost? Does the studio end up with gross-budget? Seems like a tremendously large amount of profit.

They’re mostly terrible movies with basically the same plot. They just rotate through actors that are popular at the moment. All the romcoms are getting made for streaming or direct to tv now aren’t they?

Yes, thank you. Some people don't realize I'm being tongue-in-cheek with the title haha.

I didn't get the whole going to the desert to find forgiveness(?) thing in #3. That part was just weird.

But like most people, I just look at it as a fun action movie and ignore the silly parts.

How are they making the movies so cheap

If you watch john wick movies for the story, you are the problem

John Wick parabellum was one of the only movies I’ve seen in theaters in the past like 10 years, and it had me gripping my seat and smiling showing all my teeth the entire time. Such a terrific action flick

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> Come on guys

Not directing my disappointment to OP, just the many comments who don’t catch on.

Possibly. Another way to look at it is the first movie drew in attention and more people to watch the second one. Then by the time the 3rd one came out there are all those people that have seen or heard about the first 2 movies.

Like I bet in 1983, a few months before Return of the Jedi came out, there was a lot more hype for star wars then a few months before A new Hope in 1977.

On the other hand are too many movies where each sequel has a smaller budget and is worse than the previous one. The first that comes to mind is Starship Troopers. I think in the last one they didn’t even use actors. It’s just CGI.

But Return of the Jedi did worse at the box office.