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 After many delays over the
course of a year and a half, "F9" opened to a
mighty $70 million from 4,179 North American
venues. That's by far the biggest start for a
movie at the U.S. box office since the onset of
COVID-19.
The big-screen homage to hulking men, speedy
cars and gravity-defying stunts is giving some
much-needed momentum to the movie theater
business, which has been struggling to rebound
as audiences begin to feel comfortable returning
to their local multiplex. "F9" is the latest
blockbuster-hopeful to set a new box office
benchmark for COVID times. Prior to this
weekend, Paramount's "A Quiet Place Part II"
held the pandemic-era opening weekend with $48.3
million in inaugural ticket sales.
"F9" wasn't expected to reach the opening
weekend heights of its franchise predecessors
because attendance hasn't returned to pre-COVID
levels and the Canadian box office, which
accounts for part of North American revenues, is
still almost entirely shut down. In terms of
"Fast" series launches, "F9" has a slight edge
on the 2019 spinoff "Hobbs & Shaw," which
generated $60 million and ended its theatrical
run with $173 million in the U.S. and $759
million globally. The previous film in the core
series was 2017's "The Fate of the Furious,"
which opened to $98 million and ultimately
grossed $226 million in North America and $1.2
billion worldwide. The 2015 entry "Furious 7"
marked a franchise high, posting a huge $147.2
million in its first three days of release, on
its way to $353 million at the domestic box
office and $1.5 billion globally.
David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting
firm Franchise Entertainment Research, says the
inaugural weekend of "F9" is "an excellent
opening in an extraordinary series."
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 "During the last month,
moviegoing has shown flashes of real strength,
including this weekend and 'A Quiet Place 2,'
but it has also been tentative," Gross says.
"'F9' and 'A Quiet Place 2' are the cleanest
reads of what the business can do now -- both
strong series and pure theatrical releases/no
streaming."
Gross is referring to Disney's "Cruella" and "Raya
and the Last Dragon," as well as recent Warner
Bros. titles like "The Conjuring: The Devil Made
Me Do It" and "Godzilla vs. Kong." Those movies
have been chugging along on box office charts,
but their grosses come with an asterisk because
they're also available on streaming platforms.
Alternatively, options such as "A Quiet Place
Part II" and "F9" have benefitted from the fact
that moviegoers can only watch them in theaters.
After 45 days on the big screen, "A Quiet Place
Part II" will move to the fledgling streaming
service Paramount Plus, while "F9" will be
offered on premium video-on-demand platforms
after a similar period of time.
Overseas, "F9" has been a force with
international audiences as ticket sales surpass
the $300 million mark. The movie added another
$38 million from 45 foreign markets, boosting
its tally to $335 million internationally and
$405 million globally. Although COVID-era
restrictions and consumer hesitations mean
"F9's" overall box office totals will likely
fall short of past "Fast" installments, the
action adventure didn't cost any less to produce
-- or market and promote on a global scale. That
means the $200 million-budgeted film will have
to sell plenty of online rentals, in addition to
movie tickets, to get in the black.
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