The Fate of the Furious is already on the verge of passing the coveted $1 billion milestone. The eighth installment in the massively popular Fast and the Furious franchise soared in its opening weekend, riding a monstrous international showing to reach $500 million worldwide in just its first handful of days in theaters. It followed up the biggest opening weekend of all time with over $400 million more.

While it’s already hit the $900 million mark worldwide, The Fate of the Furious shows little sign of slowing down, especially in international markets. After a strong performance for Furious 7, The Fate of the Furious is poised to top the previous installment as the biggest in the history of the franchise. The movie will certainly breeze by the $1 billion mark worldwide – and amazingly, it’s expected to happen in its third weekend in theaters.

As reported by Deadline on Wednesday, The Fate of the Furious is expected to pass $1 billion worldwide by Saturday as it easily leads the box office for the third week in a row. It would be the 30th movie in history to reach the prestigious milestone. It is projected for $24-25 million in the U.S. and Canada alone, well ahead of new release The Circle’s projected domestic total of $11-12 million. As of Tuesday, The Fate of the Furious’ North American total sits at about $169.3 million.

The Fate of the Furious will be the second in the franchise after Furious 7 to hit $1 billion worldwide. It’s the biggest win of the year so far for Universal, which will win the box office for the seventh out of 17 possible weekends so far in 2017. Split won for three weeks during its release, while Get Out led the way in its opening weekend.

Above all else, the remarkable box office performance of The Fate of the Furious marks another simply massive blockbuster in what was already a hugely successful series of movies. There’s already a plan in place for a spinoff with Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham in addition to at least two more Fast and the Furious movies, so the franchise certainly isn’t going anywhere any time soon.

The only possible drawback to the incredible box office performance of The Fate of the Furious is that its domestic totals have been relatively underwhelming. In fact, the overall domestic box office is expected to decline from last weekend’s $107.4 million, which was already down 37 percent from the week before that. But the overseas market is doing just fine, with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 premiering in 37 markets this weekend and The Fate of the Furious continuing to be a gargantuan hit and the most successful installment yet in the franchise.

Next: Fast & Furious: The Rock Promises ‘Great Fight’ with Jason Statham

Source: Deadline

  • Fast and Furious 8 Release Date: 2017-04-14