The 8th installation, The Fate of The Furious, of the Fast and Furious franchise is taking over the box office in China over passing its previous film box office record of Furious 7, which was released in 2015. There is anticipation for further growth in revenue for the release of the franchise.
Fate of the Furious, or as known in China as The Fast and The Furious 8, brought in a revenue of $8.7 million dollars for Thursday’s midnight show and $62.2 million dollars the first day, Friday, was higher than the previous film. Furious 7, brought the China’s box office a total of 8 million dollars in midnight viewings and a total of $55 million dollars on opening day.
The higher revenue is promising since the 8th installation midnight show was released before a work day and not on the weekend. The total revenue includes online ticketing fees which could be a contribution to the higher revenue it brought in.
For the past 2 years, China has recently been undergoing massive theatrical expansion. The Fate of the Furious received a record of 158 thousand showings on Friday, more than the 122 thousand showing given for Warcraft in 2016 and almost the double the estimate 80,700 for Furious 7 in 2015.
Furious 7 was the biggest Hollywood performance in the Middle Kingdom to date with a climb to $390 million dollars or in today’s rate $352.5 million dollars. Transformers: Age of Extinction coming in second. But after Friday, Fate of the Furious is expected to top both films in revenue.
There are bright prospects for the revenues in the weekend as the Universal has gone all out with their marketing campaigns such as having China’s skyscrapers be lighted with the 8th installation of the film. Plus, there is good reviews from Maoyan, a mobile ticketing platform, giving it a 9.4 out of 10 and 7.4 from Douban.
The only competition Universal is dealing with is Sony’s Smurfs: The Lost Village which is to debut next Friday.
