furIn only its second weekend, Universal’s Furious 7 hit $800.5 million at the worldwide box office in another victorious lap for the final film from the late Paul Walker and already passing up the entire global run of Fast and Furious 6.
The high-octane action pic took in another $195 million overseas from 66 markets for a foreign total of $548 million. Domestically, Furious 7 earned $60.6 million to end the weekend with a 10-day total of $252.2 million, eclipsing the $239 earned by Fast and Furious 6 in its entire run. Internationally, it will pull ahead of Fast 6‘s $550 million sometime on Monday.
The movie is No. 1 everywhere and debuted in China on Sunday to a massive $68.6 million — the biggest single-day gross in history for the world’s second-largest moviegoing market and raising the possibility that the film could ultimately beat the record-breaking $301 million earned by Transformers: Age of Extinction in summer 2014.
Furious 7 is getting the widest release of all time in China, with Sunday marking the biggest day ever in terms of attendance. The movie also made the record books in Russia, getting the widest release ever and grossing $15 million for the biggest four-day opening of all time.
In 2013, Fast 6 topped out with a franchise-best $789 million. Thanks to Furious 7, the series has now earned north of $3 billion globally for Universal ($3.18 billion to be exact). And at this rate,Furious 7 could end up with as much as $1.3 billion-$1.4 billion in global ticket sales.
“It’s a perfect storm,” said Duncan Clark, president of Universal’s international film operations.
Among holdover markets for Furious 7, Mexico leads with $39.7 million, followed by $39.1 million in the U.K., $28.3 million in Germany, $23.5 million in Brazil, $23.1 million in Australia, $20.8 million in India, $20.7 million in France, $18.8 million in Taiwan, $16.3 million in Argentina, $16.2 million in Italy and $16.1 million in South Korea.
The seventh installment is already Universal’s highest-grossing film of all time in 14 territories, including Argentina and India.
This time out, the plot pits Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto and crew (which includes Michelle Rodriguez and Tyrese Gibson, among others, as well as Walker) against Jason Statham’sDeckard Shaw, out for revenge after the death of his brother. Dwayne Johnson also reprises his role as Hobbs.
After Walker’s death, director James Wan, writer Chris Morgan and Universal pored over existing footage and tweaked the script, with production resuming in April 2014. To complete the film, CGI and voice effects were used in some scenes featuring Walker’s detective character, BrianO’Conner, with Walker’s brothers, Caleb and Cody, used as stand-ins.