Box Office: Faster and Furiouser
Monday, May 2, 2011 at 3:45PM The Fast & Furious franchise turned the box office into a regular demolition derby destroying its competition with over 60% of the top ten dollars. It seems absurd to make the comparison but maybe it's a Bondian franchise, the kind that only grows with time? Tokyo Drift, the only entry without Paul Walker or Vin Diesel in the driver's seat was its only underperformer. Okay so maybe the Bond comparison is a bad one since that series has easily survived cast changes. (Not that Fast Five didn't benefit from the addition of The Rock.
For Fast & Furious: Sixth Gear I think they should race famous vintage movie cars: The Batmobile, Thelma & Louise's Thunderbird convertiable, Bonnie & Clyde's Death Car. And while we're on the Ian Fleming franchise subject, maybe throw in a musical dream segment starring Chitty Chitty Bang Bang; lead feet with twinkle toes!
The Box Office (Actuals)
01 FAST FIVE new $86.1
02 RIO $14.7 (cumulative $104)
03 MADEA'S BIG HAPPY FAMILY $9.8 (cumulative $40.8)
04 WATER FOR ELEPHANTS $9.3 (cumulative $32.4)
05 PROM new $4.7
06 HOODWINKED TOO! HOOD VS. EVIL new $4.1
07 SOUL SURFER $3.3 (cumulative $33.8)
08 INSIDIOUS $2.6 (cumulative $48.3)
09 HOP $2.6 (cumulative $105.4)
10 SOURCE CODE $2.5 (cumulative $48.8)
Points of Interest:
Brandon Routh is "Dylan Dog"
- HOP proves that when you're holiday-themed, it's really wise to open well before the holiday. (I've never understood this with horror movies that choose to open on Halloween weekend.) Hop did huge box office right up until Easter. Afterwards? A huge 80% drop in attendance despite only losing 10% of its screens. Kill the wabbit kill the wabbit ♪ ♫
- Dylan Dog: Dead of Night opened wide but still coudn't crack the top ten. Ouch.
- Best Per Screen Average: Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams. In 3-D!
- Not every toon opens huge (Hoodwinked!) though it seems the norm (Rio, Rango, etc...)
What did you see this weekend? How many of the Fast & Furious films have you seen?
Reader Comments (12)
I actually saw FAST FIVE and I was actually thoroughly entertained believe it or not... Obviously it's not going to win any awards but I felt it was similar to SALT in that it is what it is, no more- no less. Fun action-packed humor with style to burn for 130 min. *** out of ****
:-)
Gary -- i liked the first one i admit. for the same reason. But i haven't seen any of the sequels.
I'll probably see Fast Five because of the reception, and because I have several friends who are casual fans of the series. Still haven't seen any of the previous movies.
As far as what I saw this weekend, I managed to catch the excellent Italian thriller "The Double Hour," which originally premiered in 2009, but only just now made it state-side. I'm not sure the performances deserve as much acclaim as they received, but as a twisty piece of story telling (a la Tell No One), it was great fun. It's probably not for everyone, though, as that midway twist is bound to simply irritate people by how much it, er, shifts the importance of the story. I would have seen Meek's Cutoff too, but the internets lied to me and I'm now seeing it tonight (I hope).
I've never seen anything in the Fast & Furious franchise, but I'm oddly tempted to see this one. These movies have kind of sprung up this last decade, only barely picked up by my subconscious, kind of like the years themselves. Maybe I admire their staying power, and my own.
Warning: spoilers.
I went to see Scream 4. I always enjoy seeing a horror movie in a theater where everybody feels freer to react. And I enjoyed this one just like the rest. But then, thinking about it at home I came to the conclusion this part showed more clearly what probably everybody saw movies ago, that in the end they're just whodunnits -sophisticated pastiche with some brilliant metalinguistical references about horror movies- , but in the end whodunnits. There's always that scene at the end when the killer(s) explain their reasons and how (= when in any detective story the detective makes the killer confess in front of the others), and then come the snarky comments by Sidney while she ends with them. And what came to my mind this time was Jessica Fletcher. Yes, not a kick ass Angela Lansbury, but the woman who unwillingly gets involved with a murder mystery, who has an endearing relationship with the town sheriff to whom she feels clearly superior, and whose relatives and acquaintances play fundamental parts in the murder mystery. The only main big difference being that Sidney has been refusing to try to get involved with the murder mystery solutions since the franchise began and Jessica Fletcher is just all the opposite. Well, that and that by now, Sidney Prescott may have killed as many people as one of them in one of the movies.
I preferred when I saw them as just horror movies. I guess they should've introduced some real surprise. I'd have preferred to see more of Anna Paquin and Kristen Bell land less of Panettiere who should've suffered a more cruel death even if just to make justice for her performance in Heroes.
Sorry, too long comments make too many corrections. Deleting and adding result in Kristen Bell lands or in taking away murderers from sentences as if i were Sidney Prescott myself or replacing them by lazy pronouns and shortenings as in any Scream sequel. :)
iggy -- haha (on Panetierre) she is quite a terrible actress all told. I was like "what what what are you doing?" when watching that movie last year "somebody, i love you" i forgot the title already BETH COOPER? something like that.
I've only seen the first Fast & The Furious movie. It came out when I was 14 and I actually kind of liked it. I probably wouldn't watch it again, though. I saw Rio in theatres last Tuesday with my sister, who had gone to Brazil as an exchange student a few years ago. I really liked the movie and my sister loved it. She pointed out some of the landmarks in the movie to me :)
Box office is all about Rio and Brazil, I think. Both Fast & Furious and Rio are set there. I've lived in Brazil for a few years and I'm glad this is happening. Wonderful country.
Iggy is the first person who's said they don't like Hayden Patettiere in "Scream 4". Most people love her in that movie - she really is that film's greatest asset - and most of them are surprised at how much they like her since, yes, she's not exactly a stellar actress before this. Hmmm.
Anyway, I loved "2 Fast 2 Furious", enjoyed the first, but curiously never said the rest. I may have to take in the fifth since so many people love it.
I have always thought the same thing about horror movies. I'm always thinking, "why don't they just open the first week of October?". P.S. I'm a fan of the Fast & the Furious series, still need to see the new one though.
@Glenn Dunks, is that good or bad? ;)
To be fully honest, she wasn't as terrible as I expected her to be. She had the best lines in a franchise which has great dialogues for a horror movie, and she was playing against type in the most showy part. If only for those two reasons she should've owned the movie, but instead the surprise was just "oh, she doesn't suck all the time".
Think about what any other actress of her type could've done with a sassy, blond smart ass who likes playing with the sexual attraction she puts on men. She didn't add anything to the part. I found her most of times incredibly annoying not only because that was also part of her character (the smart ass making snarky comments) but because she was trying too hard to prove her range, to make people notice her playing against type. So, I guess the showy part gets the credit in a movie which isn't exactly remarkable for its performances, but that's too little for me. I'm too demanding, I know.