'Fast X' Crashes at the US Box Office
Fast X has now been in theaters for two weekends, and it seems safe to say that its box office performance has had a slow start. According to Box Office Mojo, the movie has a total gross of over $67 million in the U.S. at the time of this writing, putting it in tenth place within the Fast and Furious franchise. However, the outlook isn't all bad as The Fast Saga approaches its big finale.
Fast X hit some unfortunate milestones in its first week in theaters – It had the worst box office opening of any movie in the franchise besides Tokyo Drift and the spinoff Hobbs and Shaw, both of which had lesser-known cast members. Accounting for inflation, it even opened below Hobbs and Shaw. Meanwhile, Fast X had some advantages that should have helped it get ahead, including an increased budget and the addition of new A-list stars such as Jason Momoa, Brie Larson and Rita Moreno. All in all, it seemed to be a bleak start for the penultimate movie in the main series, but that may be a local problem, not a global one.
A report by Polygon points out that Fast X still hit all the benchmarks it might hope for at international box offices while underperforming here in the U.S. The movie is a global hit, with a total gross of $319 million worldwide. In truth, the Fast and Furious franchise actually has a long history of performing better overseas than it does in the U.S., even if this is a more drastic case than usual.
Fast X follows the main crew – family – that most of the franchise has followed: Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel), Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez), Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson), Tej Parker (Ludacris), Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) and Han Lue (Sung Kang), as well as the later additions Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel), Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), Queenie Ellmanson-Shaw (Helen Mirren) and Cipher (Charlize Theron) among others. It introduces Momoa as a new antagonist named Dante Reyes, the son of a former rival of the family who is out for revenge. It also fleshes out the Toretto family background a bit more by introducing Moreno as Abuela Toretto, grandmother of Dom, Mia and Jakob (John Cena).
The producers of the franchise had previously announced that The Fast Saga was approaching its grand finale, with Fast X being the first part of the finale and the eleventh movie being the grand conclusion. However, just this month Diesel told Variety that Universal Picture had asked the producers to extend the finale into a twelfth film. It's unclear what. comes next, but Fast X is in theaters now.