Box Office: ‘F9’ Zooms To $70 Million Debut, Shattering Records

After many delays over the course of a year and a half, “F9” opened to a mighty $70 million from 4,179 North American venues. That’s by far the biggest start for a movie at the U.S. box office since the onset of the pandemic.

The big-screen homage to hulking men, speedy cars and gravity-defying stunts is giving some much-needed momentum to the movie theater business, which has been struggling to rebound as audiences begin to feel comfortable returning to their local multiplex. “F9” is the latest blockbuster-hopeful to set a new box office benchmark. Prior to this weekend, Paramount’s “A Quiet Place Part II” held the opening weekend with $48.3 million in inaugural ticket sales.

“F9” wasn’t expected to reach the opening weekend heights of its franchise predecessors because attendance hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels and the Canadian box office, which accounts for part of North American revenues, is still almost entirely shut down. In terms of “Fast” series launches, “F9” has a slight edge on the 2019 spinoff “Hobbs & Shaw,” which generated $60 million and ended its theatrical run with $173 million in the U.S. and $759 million globally. The previous film in the core series was 2017’s “The Fate of the Furious,” which opened to $98 million and ultimately grossed $226 million in North America and $1.2 billion worldwide. The 2015 entry “Furious 7” marked a franchise high, posting a huge $147.2 million in its first three days of release, on its way to $353 million at the domestic box office and $1.5 billion globally.