With “A Dog’s Journey” and “John Wick: Chapter 3” in theaters, we look at how well canine stars contribute to ticket sales.
It is a great weekend to be a Hollywood canine.
There’s the release of “A Dog’s Journey,” the sequel to “A Dog’s Purpose,” which in 2017 tugged at the heart strings of animal lovers so enticingly it took in $205 million worldwide. And Keanu Reeves reprises his role as cinema’s most vengeful dog owner in “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum.” This time around, feisty Belgian Malinois join in on the action.
Audiences often can’t resist when man’s best friend makes it to the big screen.
“A remarkable 70 live-action films with dogs central to the plot have been released theatrically since 1974, and together these have grossed more than $2.2 billion at the domestic box office,” said Brad Brevet, the editor of Box Office Mojo, a service that tracks theatrical grosses. “There is a timeless, enduring quality to the relationship between people and their dogs, and people of all ages like seeing this reflected on screen.”
But can studios just put them into any scenario and expect success? Which dog movies are the runt of the litter? Let’s take a closer a look.
In the same way that Tom Hanks makes for a winsome everyman, an “everydog” is a heightened version of our pets onto which we can project larger themes and ideas.
