John Wick helps to drive youth audiences to cinema

Nearly half of the total audience of cinema in the March quarter has come from the hard-to-reach P18-39 youth demographic 

Helping drive this result were blockbusters Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania, Creed III, Scream VI, and Lionsgate’s latest instalment in the John Wick franchise.  

John Wick: Chapter 4 has delivered over 680,000 admissions since its release, with 66% of the total audience falling within the P18-39 demographic. The film also drove the biggest opening weekend result out of any film this year. 

In the first few days of its release on March 23, the film outgrossed the combined box office of the first and second films in the series, John Wick and John Wick: Chapter 2, and is well on track to overtake the total box office of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum by the weekend. 

Guy Burbidge, MD of Val Morgan Cinema, said: “Youth audiences are incredibly valuable for brands, and they are cinema’s superpower. The P14-39 demo is forecasted to account for over 52% of all admissions this year and we consistently see key titles delivering +60% in sub-40 audience composition. Cinema has a guaranteed slate of key titles that can deliver this audience in droves. 

“Not only does Cinema deliver these audiences, but it brings them together in shared social experiences, with the average group size of P14-24’s being 23% bigger than regular cinemagoers. This shared experience of Cinema heightens the cultural imprinting superpowers, and movies have an audience pull factor that put brands at the heart of Aussie media culture”. 

Other blockbusters set to release in the rest of the year include Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3; the second-last instalment in the Fast Saga, Fast Xreleasing in May; Transformers: Rise of the Beast and The Flash coming in June; and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and Barbie hitting the big screen in July.