'Fate of the Furious' Revs Engines, Looking at $100+ Million Opening Weekend - Movie

by Brad Brevet
April 13, 2017

Once again a new installment in the Fast and Furious franchise takes flight in April and while The Fate of the Furious isn’t expected to match the nearly $150 million opening of 2015’s Furious 7, it is expected to become the second $100+ million opener of 2017 as all other studios have scattered, making it the only new wide release of the week. That said, Open Road will debut their animated feature Spark: A Space Tail in just over 350 theaters while Fox already began the nationwide expansion of their drama Gifted into over 1,000 theaters on Wednesday.

Prior to Furious 7, the largest opening for a Fast and Furious film was the $97.3 million opening for Fast & Furious 6 back in May 2013. Industry expectations for this eighth installment have Fate of the Furious debuting with $100 million in 4,311 theaters. This is the widest April opening of all-time (307 more than Furious 7) and 13th widest release of all-time. So, why are expectations nearly $50 million less than the previous installment?

For starters, given the massive opening for Furious 7 and what has become something of a standard dip for sequels under such circumstances, an opening that falls short of Furious 7‘s isn’t unexpeted. Adding to that expectation, IMDb page view data tells a similar story. Fate of the Furious is pacing well behind Furious 7 and also behind Fast & Furious 6 for that matter when looking at U.S.-based IMDb data at the same point in the release cycle. This isn’t to say we believe Fate is looking at a sub-$100 million opening, but it does serve as a basis for expectation when considering our weekend forecast.

As a refresher, the December 2016 trailer launch for Fate of the Furious received a record 139+ million views in the first 24 hours as the franchise still has the interest and audience awareness to pack opening weekend theaters. Also adding context, historical averages based on theater counts, distributor, genre, MPAA rating and the film’s 59 score on Metacritic would have us looking at an opening around $123 million. We’ll be going just a bit under that figure for our forecast, anticipating an opening around $115 million, plus/minus $5 million on either side.

What we’ll be keeping an even closer eye on is how the film plays over the course of its domestic run. Furious 7 is the only film in the franchise to gross higher than $240 million at the domestic box office and it did in a big way, hauling in $353 million, a 2.4x multiplier based on its opening. Interesting enough, the last three Fast films have all had multiples right around 2.4x, as the franchise’s domestic grosses continue to grow right along with the opening weekend grosses. Question is, with what is expected to be a dialed back opening weekend compared to Furious 7, can Fast 8 see a bump in multiplier or will the audience reflect the somewhat muted reviews? After a 67 rating on Metacritic for Furious 7, Fast 8‘s stands at 59, the lowest for the franchise since 2009’s Fast and Furious.

Also of note will be the film’s international performance as it opens day-and-date in 63 international territories at more than 20,000 locations. Key opening weekend markets include China, the UK, Mexico, Brazil, Australia and Russia.

Elsewhere at the domestic box office, we’re looking for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast to top $450 million domestically this weekend after becoming the first 2017 release to top $1 billion worldwide just yesterday.

We’ll also have an eye on Fox’s release of Gifted, which added over 1,000 theaters on Wednesday of this week and is adding another 100 on Friday. From those 1,146 theaters we’re anticipating a weekend right around $4 million or so.

Additionally, given this is Easter weekend, Pure Flix’s The Case for Christ should have a solid holdover, delivering around $3.3 million if not more for a second weekend in the top ten.

In limited release, Open Road is debuting their animated feature Spark: Space Tail in 353 theaters and Bleecker Street is releasing The Lost City of Z into four theaters.

This weekend’s forecast is directly below. This post will be updated on Friday afternoon with Thursday night preview results followed by Friday estimates on Saturday morning, and a complete weekend recap on Sunday morning.

• The Fate of the Furious (4,311 theaters) – $115.0 M


• The Boss Baby (3,743 theaters) – $16.9 M


• Beauty and the Beast (3,592 theaters) – $14.4 M


• Smurfs: The Lost Village (3,610 theaters) – $9.2 M


• Going in Style (3,076 theaters) – $6.9 M


• Gifted (1,146 theaters) – $4.0 M


• Kong: Skull Island (2,018 theaters) – $3.6 M


• Power Rangers (2,171 theaters) – $3.3 M


• The Case for Christ (1,386 theaters) – $3.3 M


• Ghost in the Shell (2,135 theaters) – $3.2 M

Discuss this story with fellow Box Office Mojo fans on Facebook. On Twitter, follow us at @boxofficemojo and author Brad Brevet at @bradbrevet.

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