After a strong $319 million global bow including stellar returns from China, Fast X propelled the Fast & Furious blockbuster franchise past the $6.9 billion mark with the sixth-best box office of all time.
Offical poster for “Fast X”
Fast & Furious sits behind only Star Wars, Spider-Man (including the three new MCU movies), Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts combined series, James Bond, and Marvel’s Avengers.
Off today’s Fast X sales, the Fast & Furious franchise should top $7+ billion globally. The series needs another $760+ million to move into fifth place past Avengers, however.
We’ll see this week and next Memorial Day weekend whether Fast X has the juice to stay in the race for $1+ billion. At the moment and assuming typical weekly declines, I’d guesstimate Fast X will at least cross $775 million, and more likely a minimum outcome of $850+ million based on holidays and slightly better holds. Beyond that will require evidence of odds-defying declines and continued overperformance in the Middle Kingdom.
Fast X’s terrific box office numbers out of China come after a long period of exclusion in that market for Hollywood films, and a recent return of U.S. cinema there has suffered mostly stagnant turnout compared to pre-pandemic years. But Fast X had some nitro in the tank to blast right past $78 million, proving the enduring popularity of the cast and the ability of this franchise to deliver pure adrenaline-fueled entertainment.
So there’s good indications Fast X will indeed enjoy the sort of big holds in China and elsewhere that it needs for a $1+ billion performance.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 continues to hold well and still presents a degree of draw on potential audience going forward, but it’s a minor concern relative to Fast X’s ability to gain ground over the next ten or so days. So there’s plenty of opportunity in the marketplace for both films. Even The Super Mario Bros. Movie staking out third place on the weekend charts (despite being available for home viewing, so strong is its appeal to younger and family viewing) isn’t a notable speed bump in Fast X’s immediate path.
However, Fast X has just one more full week and a half of open road ahead before serious competition joins the box office race and starts to more seriously diminish its box office returns, first in the form of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse which debuts in theaters June 2nd.
One week later, an even more direct challenger for Fast X’s audience arrives in the form of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. June 16th brings the double-whammy of The Flash and Elemental. And the month of June closes out with a final big-budget competitor in the form of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
In other words, Fast X better put the pedal to the metal for the rest of May, because June looks like an obstacle course that could cut the action-heist-racing franchise’s theatrical run short. And if that’s not all enough to leave Fast X in the dust, July’s combination of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Barbie, Oppenheimer, and Haunted Mansion will be an outright dead end for Fast X.
Or so the logic goes. The lesson is, with a massive opening weekend and an impressively large second (holiday) weekend hold, then the additional weekdays delivering healthy sales should still be enough to position Fast X for a serious run at $1 billion territory, even in the face of so much upcoming competition. When you’re going fast enough, even significant deceleration still means you’ll be cruising at a high rate for a while longer, right?
But there’s also a sizable chance Fast X will defy odds as such a crowd-pleasing international sensation that it generates a lot of repeat business and intense positive word of mouth for weeks to come. It could turn out, then, that Fast X winds up being a spoiler for some of those other would-be blockbusters on the June and July calendars. It won’t even take much — just a slight underperformance here, a larger than expected second week drop there — for the June situation to fail to slow Fast X as much as expected.
Consider that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as an animated superhero film for all ages and family audiences sort of takes the place of Mario Bros. in the box office equation, meaning it won’t be as much of a direct threat to Fast X’s audience demographics. There is enough room for them to both still enjoy nice box office returns in the market together.
Then consider that Elemental is, likewise, an all-ages family movie geared even more toward the younger crowds who aren’t really much of Fast X’s theatrical audience. And the Indiana Jones sequel has nostalgic value for Gen Xers as well as appeal for older generations as well, but the rest of Fast X’s primary audience might not care as much for the throwback sequel featuring an 80 year old lead action star.
So again, here are two films that don’t necessarily pose much direct threat to Fast X’s box office through June, depending on how things shake out.
Which leaves the most obvious and major challengers to Fast X during the month of June — Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and The Flash. This is where the question of “will one of these films underperform? will one of them have a large second weekend drop?” Because if either of those things happens, then it benefits Fast X, assuming the scenario in which Fast X has already held strong through May and held good against the openings of Into the Spider-Verse in May and Elemental in June.
And here is where I speculate heavily, since I’m already guesstimating so much.
I don’t expect The Flash to underperform or suffer big drops, since it appears far more likely to exceed expectations and generate a lot of repeat business and positive buzz, based on everything I’ve seen and heard (which is obviously not news to anybody at this point).
But I think there’s a good chance the Transformers sequel performs well in certain international markets and is a profitable blockbuster, but overall still suffers from declining public interest and a sense it’s got nothing new to offer. The previous two films each saw major drops from their predecessors’ box office totals, so this is where I’d expect to see Fast X play any cards it has in terms of clever marketing maneuvers and attempts to directly try to run a competitor off the road, so to speak.
If such a situation plays out as described above, then, Fast X would enter July a bit bumped up but otherwise still speeding along with plenty of gas left in the tank. And that would give it another nearly two weeks in early July without another dust-up before the road gets bumpy again and eventually inevitably knocks Fast X out of the race.
By that point, however, Fast X will have had plenty of time to blow past $1 billion. While there are plenty of “ifs” and “buts” in this scenario, I think most of it is likely to play out similar to how I describe it, with the only true question-marks being the results of the first challenge by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and the results of the second weekend for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (and for the love of god, can we please get a moratorium on the use of the word “rise” in movie titles?).
I would never bet against a Fast & Furious movie, and this one already seems to have a lot going for it. So the actual biggest problem I see now for the franchise and for Universal is the simple fact they can’t get the next movies started until the current WGA strike is over and unless a potential SAG-AFTRA strike is prevented or — if a strike does happen — ends. Then there is the DGA, and so on.
Hollywood is at a crossroads so significant I doubt anybody fully realizes how historic the moment is or how much the outcome could forever change entertainment. And amid this, studios are in a conflict with artists, creators, and skilled crew over providing livable wages and equitable treatment. How long this is allowed to delay the actual studio work of making and releasing films, and how audiences react to such delays, remains to. be seen.
I’ll be back with more updates, box office news and analysis, and movie reviews for you. So stay tuned and check this space again soon, dear readers,
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