As expected, F9 broke pandemic records at the box office this weekend by opening to an impressive $70 million. As the summer movie season begins to heat up in earnest, much has been said about the prospects of major tentpoles during the pandemic. Movie theaters have spent the larger portion of the past year closed, and only in recent months have there been positive signs of improvement for the box office. A Quiet Place Part II kicked things off over Memorial Day weekend and, at the time, posted the best opening weekend since the pandemic began.
For its part, F9 got off to a promising start when it released internationally last month. Its first weekend broke the previous worldwide record set by Godzilla vs. Kong and pushed the entire Fast & Furious franchise past the $6 billion mark in lifetime grosses. Though it later dipped considerably in China, Fast & Furious 9 proved to be a solid performer. All eyes then turned to its North American debut. After much adjusting, F9 finally arrived this weekend; going into Friday, conservative projections suggested the film could fall within the $50-$60 million range, then later moved up to say it would reach $67 million.
Now Dom (Vin Diesel) and his family have roared past all of those expectations to notch the biggest pandemic opening yet. Per Variety, F9 made it all the way to $70 million for its opening weekend. This is much higher than A Quiet Place Part II's 3-day gross of $48.3 million. While F9's opening is above that for spin-off Hobbs & Shaw in 2019 ($60 million), it has fallen short of past franchise installments like The Fate of the Furious ($98 million) and Furious 7 ($147.2 million). Not many people expected F9 to reach those heights, though, with the pandemic still keeping some theaters closed or at restricted capacities.
With that in mind, F9 is a welcome breath of fresh air that confirms audiences are returning to theaters. Both Fast & Furious 9 and A Quiet Place Part II are among the few major offerings out right now that don't have the backing of a dual streaming release, which has likely contributed to their impressive showings. This weekend, F9 added $38 million internationally to reach a global gross of $405 million. Again, this is a great number for these times, but the movie will still need to make more in order to earn a profit against its $200+ million budget.
F9 has another weekend to enjoy time at the box office without much competition, but that will change the weekend after. Marvel's Black Widow will arrive on July 9, and it's already projected to have a higher opening than F9. Though that feels like pitting the two tentpoles against each other, it's really just to demonstrate that movie theaters are returning. It's been a rocky year, and things are far from back to normal, but there are signs of hope in the air.
Source: Variety