Fast X's opening night box office is bigger than F9, but still suggests a shaky outlook overall. The Fast & Furious franchise is entering its endgame with Fast X, which finds Dom Toretto protecting his family from the fury of Dante, the son of Fast Five's drug kingpin Hernan Reyes, who is seeking retribution for the death of his father. Fast X assembles the franchise's biggest cast to date, including the return of many franchise regulars alongside newcomers Jason Momoa, Brie Larson, Daniela Melchior, Alan Ritchson, and Rita Moreno.

Now that Fast X's release date has arrived, its opening night box office numbers are available. According to Variety, Fast X opened to $7.5 million in Thursday previews at the domestic box office. For comparison, the franchise's two previous installments, F9 and the Hobbs and Shaw spinoff, made $7.1 million and $5.8 million, respectively, in Thursday previews.

Fast X's Box Office Outlook Explained

Fast X's opening night box office is only slightly bigger than F9's, which suggests a shaky outlook overall for the latest film on the domestic side. F9 was released during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, during a time when a whopping 80 percent of theaters in the United States were closed. With theaters reopened and pandemic-related concerns largely behind the industry at this point, Fast X's opening night box office was expected to be better. Perhaps, as the Fast X reviews suggest, audiences are becoming fatigued by the franchise.

Related: How Much Fast X Cost To Make (& What Box Office It Needs To Succeed)

The latest Fast & Furious film is expected to fare much better overseas, where the franchise tends to thrive. While Fast X's opening weekend box office projections are only about $60 million stateside, which would make it the franchise’s seventh-highest domestic debut, it is expected to open to $235 million internationally, one of the franchise's biggest openings. Since the Fast X budget ballooned to a massive $340 million and cost an additional $100 million to promote, the Fast & Furious film might have to keep its foot on the gas for months to make a sizable profit.

Source: Variety