‘Furious’ fast but not fast enough
THE Fate of the Furious easily out steped the competition in its box-office debut, though it fell short of a record opening for the stunt-laden car-chase series.
Universal Pictures’ eighth instalment from the franchise, which stars Vin Diesel, placed first with an estimated $100 million (1.3 billion) over three days in cinemas in the US and Canada, Comscore said on Sunday. It was the only new release of the weekend.
The movie had been estimated to open at $118m to $127m, according to analysts at BoxOfficePro.com and Hollywood Stock Exchange.
Twentieth Century Fox’s animated The Boss Baby returned in second place with $15.5m, missing a forecast of $15.8m, according to BoxOfficePro.com. Walt Disney’s live action adaptation Beauty and the Beast added an estimated $13.6m to the $1 billion it has generated in ticket sales globally. It was forecast to place third and add $14m, according to the analysts.
The success of Fate of the Furious proves Comcast Corp’s Universal can continue to count on Diesel and his crew of gearheads to produce reliable hits, even without one of the lead actors, Paul Walker, who died during production of the previous Furious 7 film.
While Hollywood has been dominated more and more by superhero movies, The Fast and The Furious has been able to carve out a niche in the action genre with a diverse cast that has appealed to a global audience, in particular China.
The new picture is the costliest so far, with a budget of $250m, according to Box Office Mojo, almost double the cost of some of the earlier instalments.
It opened in about 4 300 cinemas, which the studio described as the widest non-summer release in North America and its most ambitious. Before The Fate of the Furious was released, the series had already generated $3.9bn globally, according to Box Office Mojo. Furious 7, which reaped $147m in North America in its opening weekend, still ranks as the biggest April debut on record and the sixth-highest-grossing movie worldwide to date.
F Gary Gray, whose credits include the surprise hit Straight Outta Compton for Universal Pictures, directed a cast that includes Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham and several other returning actors, including Chris “Ludacris” Bridges.
Charlize Theron and Helen Mirren joined the line-up for the first time.
The film has the usual elaborate car chases, this time through the streets of Cuba and across a frozen lake. Diesel reprises the role of car racer Dominic, now married and retired. But Dom encounters a villain named Cipher (played by Theron) who tries to seduce him into a world of crime, setting the team up for a new fight.
The feature scored 65% positive reviews, according to aggregator Rottentomatoes.com. – Bloomberg