Some of the most optimistic pre-release predictions had Furious 7 earning as much as $115 million, but it NOS-boosted right by those numbers, grossing $143.6 million domestically this weekend, and $384 million including international numbers. And it still hasn’t even opened in China, Japan, or Russia.
Some numbers:
- Ninth biggest domestic opening of all time, and biggest opening since Hunger Games: Catching Fire earned $158 million in November 2013.
- Fourth biggest international opening of all time, beating out Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
- Biggest April opening ever, crushing Cap 2’s $95 million by 51%.
- Biggest Fast/Furious opening by 47%.
- $14 million from IMAX, second of all time for a 2D-only release behind The Dark Knight Rises.
And that doesn’t even count how much money Universal earned from putting Corona in the Paul Walker farewell montage! Universal was already planning three more of these, but I’d be surprised if they don’t attempt that, and some kind of Avengers/Star Wars-style universe.
As with previous installments, Furious 7 played to a diverse crowd, with non-Caucasians making up 75 percent of the audience. Hispanics made up the majority of ticket buyers (37 percent), followed by Caucasians (25 percent), African-Americans (24 percent), Asians (10 percent) and other (4 percent). Gender-wise, the turnout was fairly even, with males making up 51 percent of the audience. In terms of age, 66 percent of the audience was over the age of 25. [THR]
It is a little odd that a movie so clearly aimed at Latino and Asian bros only really has one Latino (Michelle Rodriguez) and half an Asian (Sung Kang as the hilariously named “Han Seoul-Oh,” who gets maybe 90 seconds of screen time). But most of the cast is so ambiguously ethnic that it doesn’t really matter, and maybe that’s the point. Well, I mean, the point is Vin Diesel curing his wife’s amnesia by destroying a helicopter with a car, but the multiculturalism stuff is nice too. Anyway, it’s nice to see that a movie that feels like a less gross version of Michael Bay is making Michael Bay movie money.
Elsewhere, Home continues to make okay money (down 47% from last weekend) while Get Hard dropped like a rock (off 62% from its opening).
That’s a terrible drop for a comedy; among Will Ferrell movies, its identical to Semi-Pro’s 62 percent decline. So far, Get Hard has earned $57 million total, and is now on track to close well below $100 million. [BoxOfficeMojo]
Luckily it only cost $40 million to make, and assuming they spent about that much to market it, it will probably at least break even.
It’s going to be a little slow until the Summer hits. This weekend brings us a Nick Sparks movie (The Longest Ride) and a few limited release titles, like Ex Machina. Which is probably good, I think we all need some time to decompress after Furious 7, maybe kick back with a nice Corona.