After a strong global haul of $319 million including stellar returns from China, Quick X propelled the Fast and Furious the blockbuster franchise crossed the $6.9 billion mark with the sixth-highest box office of all time.
Official poster for “Fast X”
Fast and Furious sits just behind Star Wars, Spider-Man (including three new MCU movies), Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts combined series, james bondand Marvel’s The Avengers.
Outside of today Quick X sales, Fast and Furious the franchise is set to surpass $7+ billion globally. The series needs another $760+ million to move into fifth place The AvengersHowever.
We’ll see this week and next Memorial Day weekend if Quick X it has plenty of time to stay in the $1+ billion race. At this point and assuming typical weekly lows, I guess Quick X will at least top $775M, with a $850+M bottom line more likely based on the holidays and slightly better holdings. In addition, evidence of an odds-defying decline and continued outpacing in the Middle Kingdom will be required.
Quick X’s The impressive number of cinemas comes after a long period of exclusion from that Hollywood film market, and the recent return of American cinema there has suffered a largely stagnant response compared to the pre-pandemic years. But Quick X had some nitro in the tank to push past $78 million, proving the cast’s enduring popularity and the franchise’s ability to deliver pure adrenaline-fueled entertainment.
So there are good indications Quick X will really enjoy the kind of large holdings in China and elsewhere that it needs for billion-dollar-plus performance.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 continues to hold up well and still represents a degree of potential audience attraction in the future, but it’s less of a problem compared to Quick X’s the ability to acquire in the next ten days. So there is a lot of opportunity in the market for both the films. Even The movie Super Mario Bros taking third place in the weekend rankings (although it is available for home viewing, so very attractive for younger and family viewing) is not a significant obstacle in Quick X’s direct path.
However, Quick X has only one full week and a half left before serious competition joins the race at the box office and begins to more seriously erode box office returns, first in terms of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse which debuts in theaters on June 2.
A week later, an even more direct challenger to Quick X’s audience comes in form Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. June 16 brings a double whammy The Flash and Elemental. And the month of June closes with the final big-budget contender in the form Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
In other words, Quick X better put the pedal down by the end of May, because June looks like an obstacle course that could end the theatrical run of the action heist franchise. And if that’s not enough to leave Quick X in dust, July combination Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Barbie, Oppenheimerand Haunted Mansion will be a complete dead end for Quick X.
Or at least that’s how the logic goes. The lesson here is that with a big opening weekend and an impressively big second (holiday) weekend, the extra business days that provide healthy sales should still be enough for positioning Quick X for a serious run in billion-dollar territory, even in the face of so much upcoming competition. When you’re going fast enough, even slowing down significantly still means you’ll be cruising at high speed for a while, right?
But there is also a big chance Quick X will defy the odds as such an international crowd-pleasing sensation to generate lots of repeat business and intense positive word of mouth in the coming weeks. It could, then, turn out Quick X ends up being a spoiler for some of those other potential blockbusters on the June and July calendar. It won’t even take much — just a small underperformance here, a bigger-than-expected second-week drop there — to keep things from slowing down in June Quick X as much as expected.
Consider that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as an animated superhero film for all ages and family audiences, it somehow takes its place Mario Bros. in the box office equation, meaning it won’t be as much of a direct threat Quick X’s audience demographics. There is enough room for both to continue to enjoy good box office returns in the market together.
Then think about it Elemental is also a family film for all ages, which is even more aimed at a younger audience, which is not too much Quick X’s theater audience. And the Indiana Jones the sequel has nostalgia value for Gen X as well as appeal for older generations, but the rest Quick X’s primary audiences may not care as much about a comeback sequel featuring an 80-year-old action star.
So again, here are two movies that don’t necessarily pose a direct threat Quick X’s box office until June, depending on how things go.
Which leaves the most obvious and main challenges Quick X during the month of June – Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and The Flash. The question here is “will one of these films underperform? will any of them have a big fall for the second weekend?” Because if any of those things happen, then there are benefits Quick Xassuming a scenario in which Quick X already held until May and held up well against the opening Into the Spider-Verse in May and Elemental in June.
And here’s where I’m speculating a lot, since I’m already speculating so much.
I don’t expect The Flash to underperform or suffer major declines, as it seems much more likely to exceed expectations and generate a lot of repeat business and positive buzz, based on everything I’ve seen and heard (which is obviously not news to anyone at this point).
But I think there’s a good chance Transformers the sequel performs well in certain international markets and is a profitable blockbuster, but overall it still suffers from declining public interest and a sense that it has nothing new to offer. The previous two films saw a big drop in the box office totals of their predecessors, so this is where I would expect to see Quick X play all the cards it has in terms of clever marketing maneuvers and attempts to directly try to knock the competition off the road, so to speak.
If such a situation occurs as described above, Quick X he’d enter July a little on edge, but otherwise he’s still racing along with plenty of fuel in the tank. And that would give him nearly two more weeks into early July without another dust-up before the road turns bumpy again and eventually inevitably knocks Quick X out of the race.
Until that point, however, Quick X it will have plenty of time to cross the $1 billion mark. While there are a lot of “ifs” and “buts” in this scenario, I think most of it will most likely play out much like I describe it, with the only real question marks being the results of the first challenge by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and second weekend results for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (and for god’s sake, can we get a moratorium on the use of the word “rise” in movie titles?).
I would never bet against a Fast and Furious movie, and this one seems to already have plenty of that. So the biggest problem I see right now for the franchise and for Universal is the simple fact that they can’t get the next movies off the ground until the current WGA strike is over and unless the potential SAG-AFTRA strike is averted or — if a strike happens — ends. Then there is the DGA, and so on.
Hollywood is at such a momentous crossroads that I doubt anyone fully realizes how historic this moment is or how much the outcome could change entertainment forever. And in the midst of this, studios are at loggerheads with artists, creators and skilled crew over securing living wages and fair treatment. The question remains how long this may delay the studio’s actual work on making and releasing the films, and how audiences will react to such delays. to be seen.
I will be back with more updates, box office news and analysis and movie reviews for you. So stay tuned and check this space again soon dear readers,
Forbes – Lifestyle