The Fate of the Furious has just raced past the competition on its second weekend. The eighth movie in the ever-growing and ever-loudening Fast and the Furious saga, is already an unquestioned box office success; when it opened the weekend of April 14 it pulled in $532 million worldwide, breaking the record set in 2015 by Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Over $100 million of that total came from the U.S., although the film did even better in the Chinese market. Because of the international appeal, Fate was expected to have staying power, and even though it dropped 60 percent domestically for its second weekend, the film still enjoyed a hugely strong, and lucrative, second week.

The Fate of the Furious once again led the domestic box office this weekend, pulling in $38.7 million (according to Variety). Internationally, the film pulled in $163.4 million (reported by Deadline). The film has now reached a global box office of over $900 million to date and is expected to cross the $1 billion mark this week.

The rest of the box office didn’t put up much of a fight against Furious, with a pair of holdover hits taking the next two spots; the animated comedy The Boss Baby came in second with $15.5 million and Disney’s live-action remake Beauty and the Beast third with $13.6 million. The comedy Going in Style took the fourth spot, with the animal documentary Born in China coming in fifth. A pair of new releases - the Katherine Heigl/Rosario Dawson thriller Unforgettable and the Oscar Isaac-starring drama The Promise - both failed to connect.

This continued performance, especially internationally, is good news for the Furious franchise, especially when the second-weekend drop was most likely a symptom of the opening numbers being so huge. With two more main series movies - set for April 19, 2019 and April 2, 2021 - as well as a spinoff with Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham’s characters in the works, there’ll be plenty more in the future. However, despite its big numbers, The Fate of the Furious is still behind the box office pace of franchise predecessor Furious 7, which ended its run on over $1.5 billion worldwide, and the critical response was a little less forthcoming this time.

The film has big competition coming up too. Next week sees the international release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, meaning that side of the takings will likely be vastly down next weekend, although domestically the Marvel sequel is still another week away, giving Fate a third chance for box office dominance at home.

Source: Variety, Deadline

Next: Why Fate of the Furious Beat Star Wars 7 Box Office Record

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