2017 seems to be shaping up to be a good year for movies. According to Box Office Mojo, box office dollars are up 6.2% compared to last year and almost 15% from 2015. This news isn’t surprising considering the films that have been released so far, including the indie surprise Get Out, the anticipated Beauty and the Beast from Disney, and a new Marvel movie from Fox. It turns out that all of these blockbusters were merely preparing the industry for the latest installment in the Fast and the Furious franchise.
This new movie, called The Fate of the Furious, opened around the world and in the United States this month. In the US, the film raked in $98.78 million to reach number one at the box office in its first weekend. That number is impressive, but it’s nowhere near the biggest American opening of the year (Beauty and the Beast raked in $174.75 million and Kong: Skull Island brought in $61.02 million in their first weekends) but it gets even better when you hear its worldwide total of $532.5 million, a new world record. The last movie to hold that record was Star Wars: The Force Awakens with $529 million.
Entertainment news sources such as Quartz gives China all of the credit for this record-smashing box office success. The Asian country contributed about $190 million to the total weekend total. Chinese audiences are currently having a love affair with movies that are heavy on the action and explosions, and The Fate of the Furious certainly fits the bill. We’ll see if this film keeps up the box office momentum as more comic book movies come in to crash the party.
One thing is pretty much for certain: A record-breaking first weekend like this surely means there will be more Fast and the Furious movies in the future. Whether that is a good or a bad thing is completely up to you.
News Source: Quartz
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