Well, we knew it was coming, but few predicted it would be this huge- the latest installment in the endless Fast and Furious series saw its biggest opening yet, as it pulled in $143 million over the weekend, shattering records all over the place. It crushed last year's Captain America sequel to become the biggest April opener of all time, the ninth biggest opening weekend ever, and of course it sets the record for the franchise itself, with the last movie opening to $97 million in 2013. It was helped by some fairly kind reviews, but I'm at a loss over the appeal of this series myself. I saw the first one in 2001, and to me it was a total guy movie and utterly forgettable, so I never saw another. I'll never be on board this particular train, sorry guys. Worldwide the record was even more impressive, as it earned $384 million over the weekend, placing it behind only the Harry Potter and Avengers movies in terms of global totals. Pretty insane, right?
In other news, Home held up reasonably well for second place, falling just 47%, on track with the recent SpongeBob movie's trajectory, which ended up with $160 million overall, so that's good news for the DreamWorks animated feature. But Get Hard dropped a harsh 62% to earn just $12 million this week off its $33 million debut- not a good sign, and possibly an indicator of negative word of mouth. In fourth place was Cinderella, chugging right along with another $10 million for the weekend, as it just whizzed past $400 million worldwide in another Disney success, and right behind it was Insurgent to round out the top five.
Top 5:
- Furious 7- $143.6 million
- Home- $27.4 million
- Get Hard- $12.9 million
- Cinderella- $10.3 million
- Insurgent- $10 million
In limited release, Noah Baumbach's While We're Young expanded well, earning $493k from 34 screens for a $14k per screen average, making it on track to earn at least $10 million, while It Follows held just outside the top five for a new total of $8 million. Next week there's no big release on the horizon, just the sci-fi film Ex Machina and the Scott Eastwood drama The Longest Ride, so expect Furious 7 to keep a tight hold on the box office for a while, maybe even until Avengers comes out on May 1st. Until then, Happy Easter everybody!
