Hasta La Vista, Kylo Ren and dinosaurs of Jurassic World. There’s a new big dog when it comes to global box office champ and that is The Fate of the Furious. That’s right. The eighth installment in Universal’s most successful franchise ever registered a domestic weekend of $100.2 million. Okay, so that isn’t as impressive as Furious 7 with an April 2015 opening of $147.1 million (which is the best opening weekend for the month of April and No. 16 best all-time). Spanning the globe is another story, as F8 opened in 63 territories with a record haul of $432.3 million. For comparison purposes, previous record-holder Jurassic World debuted with $316.7 million.
Combining the domestic and overseas totals you have an opening weekend of $532.5 million. Star Wars: The Force Awakens had an accumulative bow of $529 million back in December 2015.
So let’s count some records.
1) It’s the biggest worldwide opening weekend of all time.
2) The biggest foreign opening weekend of all time.
3) Third-best Easter weekend debut.
4) Fifth-best domestic opening for Universal (Jurassic World is No. 1 with $208.8 million).
5) Widest release in IMAX format (1,079 screens).
Beyond the impressive numbers put up by The Fate of the Furious, Fox’s The Boss Baby crossed $100 million with its No. 2 finish for the weekend ($15.5 million) and Beauty and the Beast (No. 3) continues to growl all the way to the bank having crossed a billion in earnings worldwide, including $454.6 million in the U.S. in five weeks.
The Chris Evans family drama Gifted expanded from 56 screens to 1,146 and earned an estimated $3 million. Jordan Peele’s directorial debut, Get Out, continues to spook audiences. Two months in release and it has earned $167.5 million. Peele’s film is the best performing release for a first-time filmmaker.
In limited release, Neon’s Colossal starring Anne Hathaway went from four screens to 98 and raked in $462,869. It will expand to more screens and markets in the forthcoming weeks.
This upcoming weekend sees new releases Unforgettable starring Katherine Heigl and Rosario Dawson; Amazon Studios’ The Lost City of Z expanding to 500 screens; and Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire starring Oscar winner Brie Larson.
