Universal’s Furious 7 roared past the $100 million mark at the international box office before the weekend even begun.
The final film featuring the late Paul Walker, Furious 7 earned $59.2 million from 63 markets Friday for a three-day foreign total of $120.6 million and worldwide haul of $197.9 million, factoring in the $67.3 million earned Friday in North America. The movie looks to gross well north of $300 million globally through Easter Sunday.
Universal is also celebrating Fifty Shades of Grey crossing the $400 million mark internationally for a global total of $566.1 million by the end of the weekend.
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Opening No. 1 everywhere, Furious 7 is pacing ahead of blockbuster Fast & Furious 6. In 40 countries, it delivered the biggest opening day for a Universal film, while it has already passed up the entire foreign runs of The Fast and the Furious ($62.9 million), 2 Fast 2 Furious ($109 million) and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift ($96 million).
Furious 7 is getting the widest release in Universal’s history. Internationally, it has booked more than 10,500 screens, although it won’t open in China, Japan and Russia until later.
The movie enjoys massive awareness and interest, due to both the popularity of the street-racing series and Walker’s death. The last film, Fast & Furious 6, debuted to a franchise-best $117 million over the four-day Memorial Day weekend in 2012, including $97.4 million for the three days, on its way to grossing $788.7 million worldwide.
Universal intended to open Furious 7 on July 11, 2014, but production was halted in November 2013 when Walker died in a car crash during the Thanksgiving hiatus. After director James Wan, writer Chris Morgan and Universal pored over existing footage and tweaked the script, production resumed in April 2014.
CGI and voice effects were used in some scenes featuring Walker’s detective character, Brian O’Conner, with Walker’s brothers, Caleb and Cody, used as stand-ins.
Furious 7 pits Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto and crew (which includes Michelle Rodriguez and Tyrese Gibson, among others, as well as Walker) against Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw, out for revenge after the death of his brother. Dwayne Johnson also reprises his role as Hobbs.
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