‘F9’ steadily steers to mighty debut overseas
LOS ANGELES — F9 has the international box office sizzling.
The latest installment in Universal’s testosterone-fueled franchise kicked off with a massive US$162.4 million in eight markets, including China, Korea and Hong Kong. Those ticket sales easily mark the best start for a Hollywood blockbuster since COVID-19 hit.
It’s an encouraging start to summer movie season, particularly because revenues weren’t far off from what a Fast movie would have generated at the box office in non-pandemic times.
“Moviegoers are eager to come back to theaters when the right movie is out there,” Universal’s president of international distribution Veronika Kwan Vandenberg said. “It’s a great movie for the China market,” she adds. “It has a strong fanbase.”
Of this weekend’s Us$162million bounty, US$135 million came from China alone. That ranks as the second-biggest launch for the series in the country following the eighth entry, 2017’s The Fate of the Furious (US$184 million). In another notable milestone, it’s the first Hollywood title in two years — since Disney’s 2019 superhero epic Avengers: Endgame — to debut to more than $100 million in China.
Elsewhere, F9 opened to US$9.9 million in Korea, as well as US$6.2 million in the Middle East and US$2.4 million in Hong Kong. With this weekend’s ticket sales, the Fast franchise has pushed past US$6 billion globally.
F9 — directed by Justin Lin and starring Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, John Cena — is deploying a staggered rollout across the world as the globe recovers from the pandemic. It touches down in the U.S. on June 25 and will bow in 60 additional markets over the summer. Unlike upcoming blockbuster hopefuls, such as Disney’s Black Widow and the Warner Bros. musical In the Heights, F9 will only be offered in theaters — at least for its first few weekends of release.
It was much quieter at the box office in North America, where the gruesome horror film Spiral, action adventure Wrath of Man and wilderness thriller Those Who Wished Me Dead presided over the competition.
Without any new nationwide releases, Spiral remained in first place with US$4.5 million from 2,991 screens in its second weekend of release. The movie, a creepy addition to the Saw franchise that stars Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson, has generated US$15 million in the U.S. to date.
In second, Wrath of Man collected US$2.9 million from 3,007 theaters. After three weeks on the big screen, the Jason Statham-led vigilante flick has amassed US$18.8 million.
Ticket sales for Those Who Wish Me Dead, starring Angelina Jolie, dipped 35 per cent from its opening weekend. The film brought in US$1.8 million from 3,379 venues between Friday and Sunday, boosting its total haul to a bleak US$5.5 million. The Warner Bros. movie, like the studio’s entire 2021 slate, is currently playing on HBO Max and will remain on the streaming service for 31 days in total.
Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon and the Warner Bros. tentpole Godzilla vs. Kong rounded out the Top 5 on domestic box office charts. The family friendly Raya and the Last Dragon pulled ever so slightly ahead of Godzilla vs. Kong with US$1.6 million in ticket sales, compared to US$1.4 million for the latter.