Everyone knew Universal’s Fast Five was going to win the weekend. The question was how much exactly would it bring in?
The last installment, Fast and Furious, opened with $70.9 million and audiences seemed excited over this fifth film, which meant that number was going up. Laremy predicted an even $77 million and after an estimated $33.2 million on Friday, which includes a $3.7 million midnight opening, he may be really close. However, what’s most surprising about this number is that should Fast Five hit this mark it will become Universal’s largest opening ever, besting the previous record holder, Steven Spielberg’s Lost World: Jurassic Park, which brought in $72.1 million back in 1997. For some reason, that blew me away.
One interesting factor is Universal really bumped up the budget on this one to a reported $125-$150 million over the $85 million they paid for Fast and Furious. However, on top of the massive domestic opening, Universal expects the film to top $80 million in worldwide receipts by Sunday, which would give the film approximately $160 million to date worldwide.
As far as the weekend’s other newcomers are concerned, Disney’s Prom stumbled out of the gates to a $1.9 million weekend, likely to cap around $6 million and Weinstein’s Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil didn’t really have much of a chance as Fox’s Rio juggernaut will pass the $100 million mark domestically this weekend and is the current animated toast of the town.
Rio topped the last two weekends, but this weekend will fall to second after $3.6 million on Friday and a likely $12-13 million weekend. Right behind it is Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family with $3.1 million and will likely finish around $9-10 million.
I’ve included the complete Friday breakdown below and will be back on Sunday morning with a complete weekend wrap-up.
- Fast Five – $33.2 million
- Rio – $3.6 million
- Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family – $3.1 million
- Water for Elephants – $2.9 million
- Prom – $1.85 million
- Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil – $1.1 million
- Soul Surfer – $1.02 million
- Insidious – $1 million
- African Cats – $961,000
- Source Code – $810,000
