The box office heats up in a big way this weekend with the opening of The Fate of the Furious. Universal Pictures’ behemoth billion dollar franchise is poised to do big business worldwide and it’s only a question of how high will this eighth installment actually go?
The eighth film, which is directed by F. Gary Gray, taking over for Furious 7‘s James Wan, comes with an asterisk at the box office. After the success of Furious 7‘s $147.1M domestic opening, the laws of gravity as they relate to sequels indicate that F8 will ease down a bit. Not because people are concerned with quality but mostly because there were circumstances that increased interest in Furious 7.
The film was something of a turning point for the series given how it served as an emotional goodbye for fans in the wake of star Paul Walker’s untimely tragic death. Other factors that played into Furious 7‘s $147.1M stateside opening, $250.5M launch and final $1.5 billion worldwide take (the sixth-best for any film) included the anticipation built up due to the film’s delay from 2014 to 2015 on account of Walker’s passing; the cast’s mammoth social media following, the largest for any film franchise, spurred by Dwayne Johnson, Vin Diesel, Jason Statham and Ludacris, which reaches 600 million; as well as the perfect release date when mostly everyone around the globe are on holiday.
Given how Furious 7 was Walker’s swan song, it served as a cathartic experience for fans, and even the studio thinks that can’t be replicated. While “family” was the main theme of the seventh film, F8 has been sold on its “destruction of family” premise with Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto turning against his Fast gang. Stakes are also upped in this sequel with the addition of Charlize Theron as the villain who turns Dom. Helen Mirren and Scott Eastwood are also newcomers to the cast, which also includes Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Nathalie Emmanuel, Elsa Pataky and Kurt Russell.
But here is what works in its favor, even more so, on a global level. The cast is already stacked with huge international names which have helped propel its overseas numbers to epic levels but with the addition of the new cast members, who also possess worldwide appeal, it opens up the doors even more for the film to have a huge global bow.
The stars of the film have been making the rounds and box office tracking has it opening to close to $400 million worldwide. How much of that will come from its stateside opening? Some tracking has it as low as $110 million but I think it will speed right over those expectations and score about $120 million for the weekend.
Check back Monday to see the weekend’s final box office results!
