Warner Bros. has had more success with original movies in the last year or so than with IP-driven fare. Sure, movies such as Final Destination Bloodlines and The Conjuring: Last Rites have grossed hundreds of millions of dollars at the box-office, but they were always expected to. The more impressive feat was getting films such as Sinners, Weapons, and One Battle After Another to become mainstream hits. The studio has another major original movie on its slate this year: Alejando G. Iñárritu's Digger, starring Tom Cruise. It's a huge, very expensive risk that needs to do The Revenant-level business to succeed. The studio began 2026 with yet another filmmaker-driven hit: Wuthering Heights, which grossed $242 million worldwide against a reported budget of $80 million. However, two subsequent franchise films have significantly underperformed.

Every movie with a clean suit, lots of dead bodies and a stunt team that deserve more than just a round of drinks at the end of the day has had to live in the shadows of John Wick for the last ten years. The series hasn't just re-knighted Keanu Reeves as the king of action, but it also trained audiences to expect more and better from modern fight choreography. Now, things can't be sloppy. Suddenly, close-quarters combat had to be sharper, faster, stronger, and you had to feel the hits. Now though, a new Hong Kong action thriller is arriving with the kind of buzz that suggests the bar may have been raised again.