Weekend Box Office: WTF 'FAST & FURIOUS'?!?
Filed under: New Releases, Box Office
The first weekend take for Fast & Furious, a staggering $72 million, beats the entire domestic gross of its series predecessor, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift by $10 million dollars? It is also far and away the year's best opening, though that will likely change come May. How did this happen? Bringing back Vin Diesel and Paul Walker as part of the "series reboot" helped. The hip new advertising campaign that focused heavily on the car chase action probably succeeded in making the franchise seem less "cheesy" this time around. (The Tokyo Drift subtitle, which turned out to have great traction (ZING!) as a running joke, didn't help the beleaguered third film.) Having seen the movie, that seems a little silly, since it's probably even more hilarious than its predecessors (and never has the description of Vin Diesel as an "angry potato" been more apt). But here we are, and a fifth entry in the series is all but assured.
A sad casualty of the weekend, apart from our collective intelligence, is the lovely Adventureland, which debuted to a disappointing $6 million. I think Miramax was jamming a square peg into a round hole by attempting to market Greg Mottola's film as another Superbad, which it decidedly is not, but I don't really know. It had a great concept but no stars among its lovely cast, so I guess it wasn't the easiest sell.
Monsters vs. Aliens is headed for a not-great $150-160 million finish. I Love You, Man, on the other hand, looks like it'll beat both Jason Segel's Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Paul Rudd's Role Models. Sunshine Cleaning expanded this weekend and snuck into the top 10, with Overture trying hard to platform its way to a sleeper hit. It may have a minor one.
The full top 10 after the jump.
1 - Fast & Furious (Universal) - $72.51 ($20,950) - $72.51
2 - Monsters vs. Aliens (Dreamworks Animation) - $33.51 ($8,155) - $105.70
3 - The Haunting in Connecticut (Lionsgate) - $9.55 ($3,496) - $37.24
4 - Knowing (Summit) - $8.13 ($2,447) - $58.20
5 - I Love You, Man (Dreamworks) - $7.85 ($2,775) - $49.29
6 - Adventureland (Miramax) - $6.01 ($3,228) - $6.01
7 - Duplicity (Universal) - $4.30 ($1,705) - $32.38
8 - Race to Witch Mountain (Disney) - $3.35 ($1,186) - $58.39
9 - 12 Rounds (Fox) - $2.30 ($987) - $9.02
10 - Sunshine Cleaning (Overture) - $1.88 ($3,923) - $4.78
Next week:
Ordinarily I'd bet on a big win for Hannah Montana, but with the enrmous flop of the Jonas Brothers concert flick a month back, I'm a bit hesitant. Its competition will be the kid-friendly Dragonball: Evolution, the not at all kid-friendly Observe & Report, the second weekend of Fast & Furious and the third of Monsters vs. Aliens.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-06-2009 @ 9:22AM
Kevin said...
Umm, Eugene, you do know that Aprils Fools Day was last week, right? Please God tell me that Fast and Furious only made like 12 million dollars.
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4-08-2009 @ 9:52PM
Malek said...
come on don't be so negative. I have been actually looking forward to this movie. We don't always need brainy movies with alot of twists and deep plots and christian bale's or some other oscar worthy actor's acting. i am happy it made money.
4-06-2009 @ 9:45AM
John R said...
Well, now that I have coffee all over my keyboard...
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4-06-2009 @ 11:05AM
RLP said...
Adventureland up against turd money-making film, plus, of course, marketing it like it was Superbad 2 was a terrible idea. Adventureland will make its way around by word of mouth while its out or dvd/online. Fast and furious will become a distant memory to those who forked over that money. to them it was like consuming a mcdonalds cheeseburger or drinking a starbucks coffee.. it is quick and served its purpose and nothing more, lol.
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4-06-2009 @ 1:13PM
The Regula said...
Actually Fast & Furious was pretty good and quite surpised me I almost didn't see it, but glad I did. It held up against the 1st installment well if not a bit better and blows 2 & 3 out of the water. I think it will be in the top 3 next week after word of mouth (that being the people who didnt see it because they thought it would suck then their friends that did see it telling them otherwise lol)
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4-06-2009 @ 2:10PM
tek said...
Surprised? Why? It's the only exciting movie out right now that appeals to the teen and early 20s crowd! We should remember that the film industry exists to make money, and this is the kind of franchise that does exactly that. Not to mention the huge advertising campaign that has gone with it, repeats of the previous movies on TV, etc....
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4-06-2009 @ 5:01PM
pAT said...
"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." -H.L. Mencken
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4-06-2009 @ 8:54PM
Julio said...
"Hannah" will not be as big as you might initially think. She's last year's model. The soundtrack album couldn't even manage a No. 1 debut, losing out to the latest installment of the endless "Now" compilation series. The show now regularly ranks second to Nickelodeon's "iCarly" in the ratings. It'll do alright, but will it top the box office? I dunno.
It's wrong to assume that it has much to worry about from "Fast & Furious," "Observe & Report" and "Dragonball," though. Its main competition is week 3 of "Monsters vs. Aliens." The audiences for those other films were never going to see "Hannah," and "Hannah's" audience was never going to see the other three.
"Hannah's" audience isn't generically "kids," it's specifically "tween girls." This is their "Sex & The City," their "Mamma Mia!" But while they all appeal to females, those films appeal to a broader age range than "Hannah." "Twilight" is a little closer comparison, but even that had a broader age range of appeal.
The concert film isn't an accurate predictor, either -- it was initially sold as a limited engagement and ticket prices were higher than even an average 3-D film.
I'm thinking "Hannah" does around $20-$25 million -- nothing to sneeze at, but maybe not enough for the top of the box office in a busy week. Teens and adults of both sexes are going to see "Observe & Report" and "Fast & Furious." Full families will see "Monsters." And "Dragonball" won't just be kids or families -- there'll be a pretty large audience of adult anime/manga nerds and martial arts geeks (no disrespect). "Hannah" has the most limited demo of any new release this week. But it's a voracious group, more apt to run out on opening weekend than perhaps any of the others.
I don't know that I'd put "Hannah" at the top of my list, were I betting. But I'm also not sure what I *would* put there. This is a very tough week to predict -- I mean, who thought we'd be looking at such a huge opening weekend for "Fast & Furious," anyway? I thought it would finish second to "Monsters."
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4-07-2009 @ 1:56AM
Rich said...
I'm sorry, but the pretentiousness of the comments is a bit staggering. I'm a film junkie like anyone here, and I love many indie films and low-grossing, well-made titles. Does that mean I have to automatically (without actually seeing it) denounce a film franchise?
I like cars. I like hot women. I like action - and this movie has all three. There's not many movies out that are like that, so if I want to go to a movie to escape - well FF4 seems like a good start.
The movie industry needs these bread and butter movies to allow them to take risks on less popular but more well thought out movies. Knocking them and automatically calling those that go see them as stupid - well that's pretentious.
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