Among this year's crop of summer blockbusters, one film stands out in particular. Long known as being non-interesting to viewers, The Fast & Furious series has grown from that of a weakling to a formidable opponent.
| OW admissions | OW | Gross | Multiplier | |
| The Fast & the Furious | N/A | N/A | $146,464 | N/A |
| 2 Fast 2 Furious | N/A | $127,613 | $209,844 | 1.64 |
| The Fast & the Furious: Tokyo Drift | N/A | $370,665 | $475,179 | 1.28 |
| Fast & Furious | N/A | $262,797 | $567,218 | 2.16 |
| Fast Five | 76,064 | $532,774 | $1,823,664 | 3.42 |
The Fast & Furious series was a slow burner for the first 4 movies, increasing with every installment at a snail's pace from $146,464 in 2001 to $567,218 in 2009. Unlike the previous 4, the 5th one in the series, Fast Five shocked everyone and raced to 626m worldwide. It made almost 4x the worldwide gross of Tokyo Drift and nearly 75% more than Fast & Furious worldwide. In HK, the spread was greater. Although there was no noticeable bump from Tokyo Drift to Fast & Furious, the 5th one surprised nearly everybody by winning its opening weekend over he 2nd weekend of Thor. It whooshed on ahead of Thor on all 4 days and it took in 76,064 admissions for the weekend, thumping Thor by over 22,000 admissions. In gross, it powered to $532,774, beating the first three Fast films' totals and nearly defeating Fast & Furious's total. Fast Five would be the new franchise leader just one day later as the Tuesday holiday inflated Monday admissions. After it raced to victory in just 5 days, one wondered how well it would hold up since the Fast & the Furious series is not known for any legs in HK.
2nd weekend saw Fast Five showcase its muscles, sliding 29% from its opening weekend. It was an outstanding hold, given the Fast series penchant for dropping off a cliff after opening weekend and that none of the other Fast & Furious movies pulled off a drop below 50% on its 2nd weekend. Fast Five had already doubled up on Fast & Furious's total in 11 days.
With Pirates 4 swashbuckling into theaters on Fast Five's 3rd weekend, it was thought that it would ultimately steamroll over Fast Five but Fast Five persevered and held on tight with a 57% drop, nailing the 2nd best hold for a wide release on that weekend. Its total ran up to 1.5m, doing 3x more than Tokyo Drift and nearly 3x of Fast & Furious.
Fast Five's 4th weekend brought its fairytale run to a sweet ending as it made more than the other 4 Fast & Furious movies combined when its total reached an incredible $1.736m.
It would stay another 4 weeks on the circuit and finished with $1,823,664 total from HK. Some of Fast Five's incredible achievements included being the only Fast & Furious movie to clear a 3 multiplier. It also played in theaters the longest, running for 8 weeks and the greatest of all is that it was the best received movie of the franchise.
Fast & Furious 6 got a huge shot in the arm with the Superbowl ad in February and will ride that interest into its opening weekend. Now that the Fast & Furious series is becoming a viable blockbuster after the success of Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6 will have much higher expectations on its performance this month. There is still a lot of room for the Fast & Furious's series to grow in HK, especially on opening weekend. After the slightly muted opening for Star Trek Into Darkness last weekend, it is likely that many are waiting for Fast & Furious 6 this week instead.
Fast & Furious 6 will have the goodwill from Fast Five on its side when it opens Wednesday night with early sneak previews. Under the distribution of EDKO, this will play in an ultra wide release at almost all theaters (except IMAX). Pre-sales are looking sharp with it doing twice the business of the nearest competitor, either Star Trek 2, The Great Gatsby or Iron Man 3. A fair prediction for Fast & Furious 6 on opening weekend would be about $900,000-1m, however, it could do 1.2-1.3m if walk-ins turn out in full force. The past 2 years have seen ticket prices increase 3 times, first in December 2011, then December 2012 and then February 2013. That will be huge for Fast & Furious 6 even if admissions don't match up to Fast Five. Fast Five's 100% increase from Fast & Furious does not seem to be an aberration but more of a correction. I like Fast & Furious 6's chances of beating Fast Five's OW admissions and OW.
After opening weekend, there won't be major competition in week 2 but week 3 features the After Earth-Hangover 3 showdown which will definitely take away audiences from Fast & Furious 6. Week 4 does not look too bad except for Switch. Week 5 has World War Z descending upon Hong Kong but zombies, vampires and the like don't really do well in Hong Kong. I could see that bombing and Fast & Furious 6 surviving another week. Week 6 will be hell for Fast & Furious 6 with Man of Steel throwing down the gauntlet against Iron Man 3 and Epic beginning the Hollywood rush of animated films this summer.
Fast & Furious 6 starts its engines on Wednesday night with early previews and Thursday in official capacity.
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