Saturday Update: Lionsgate updates this morning with an official opening day estimate of $22.67 million for John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum on Friday, setting it on course to take first place for the weekend. Yesterday’s performance was 107 percent ahead of John Wick 2‘s $10.065 million opening day and just 1 percent behind Mission: Impossible – Fallout‘s $22.8 million first day last summer.

Despite already tracking well ahead of the previous film in the franchise for weeks, final pre-release forecast trends had indicated this type of breakout debut was achievable thanks to strong fan goodwill from the first two films and a lack of adult-aimed blockbusters in the market recently. For the weekend, Wick 3 looks poised to top $55 million and could even challenge for $60 million on the high end of projections.

In second, Avengers: Endgame added $7.37 million yesterday, giving it $748.8 million domestically through 22 days of play. Business was down nearly 55 percent from last Friday as the Marvel film has found some difficulty stabilizing its legs since last month’s historic opening. To be fair, though, the pic lost some PLF screens to Pikachu last week and more to Wick this weekend. A fourth frame around $29 million appears likely as the film is set to surpass Avatar‘s $760.5 million final domestic haul for #2 on the all-time chart either late Saturday or early Sunday.

Detective Pikachu took in $6.26 million to begin its sophomore frame, a sharp drop of nearly 70 percent from opening day last weekend. While family playability remains its strength and could drive better weekend business, the film looks to fall a little below second weekend expectations with a performance around $24 million.

Meanwhile, A Dog’s Journey ($2.52 million) and The Sun Is Also A Star ($1.04 million) also opened on Friday to mixed results. Early weekend projections for those are in the table below.

Friday Report: Lionsgate reports this morning that John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum kicked off opening weekend with a strong $5.9 million estimate from Thursday night’s shows in 3,000 locations. That comes in an excellent 168 percent ahead of its predecessor as John Wick: Chapter 2 scored $2.2 million in its February 2017 start. It also nearly doubles Equalizer 2 ($3.1 million) last summer and fell just shy of Mission: Impossible – Fallout‘s $6.0 million late summer launch last year.

Of particular note, Wick 3‘s Thursday showing was the highest launch in Lionsgate studio history outside of the Twilight and Hunger Games franchises. The film opens internationally in 65 markets this weekend.

Read more about this weekend’s new releases in our earlier weekend forecast.

A Dog’s Journey was more modest in its Thursday evening open, taking in $275K from 2,450 locations. By comparison, A Dog’s Way Home started with $535K earlier this year, while A Dog’s Purpose kicked off with $460K in January 2017.

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