The fate of the furious or fast and furious 8 as it is more popularly called did not disappoint at the global box office as the eighth installment took in an estimated global haul of $532.5 million, according to numerous reports.
This haul surpasses that of Star Wars: The Force Awakens” ($528.9 million) for the all-time best global opening weekend.
The movie also raked in a whopping $525.5 million breaking the previous studio record held by Jurassic world and $423.3 million on the international box office front, also surpassing $316.6 million made by Jurassic world.
It was an incredible weekend in China, with “Furious 8” taking in a record-breaking $63.9 million opening day. It went on to make $190 million over the weekend — the biggest opening ever for a Hollywood movie there.
Where Universal underperformed, surprisingly, was in North America, where the movie took in only $100.2 million.
Never expected to take on the enormous $147.1 million opening weekend that 2015’s “Furious 7” did, with mixed reviews from critics, “Fate of the Furious” barely crossed the $100 million mark. The culprit is Saturday sales, which dipped a steep 32% from its Friday take of $45.8 million(including Thursday previews).
However, in a time where the profits are derived mainly from overseas showings, local viewing wouldn’t matter as such.
Also helping the film’s big weekend is being released on 1,079 IMAX screens worldwide, the widest opening ever for a single film in IMAX history. The finally tally was $31.1 million globally on IMAX screens alone, a record for April.
Don’t be surprised if you hear soon the studio announce a ninth film in the franchise (or Vin Diesel make it public to his Facebook fans).