Fast & Furious 6 accomplished numerous feats at the North American box office on Friday behind stars Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson to give everyone at Universal Studios reason to smile this Memorial Day weekend. With the added business of fellow newcomers The Hangover Part III and Epic, plus holdover business from Star Trek Into Darkness and Iron Man 3, this weekend is on course to be one for the record books following the $276.9 million tallied in 2011 behind The Hangover Part II.
Since Vin Diesel and Paul Walker returned to the Fast & Furious franchise, each successive film has been setting a new franchise record. That trend is continuing with Fast & Furious 6 which opened to $38.2 million on Friday including Thursday midnight showings. The opening bests the previous franchise high of $34.4 million set by Fast Five, and marks the best opening day a Universal Studios film has ever had. It will easily set the best three and four-day opening record for the studio as well with the four-day estimates now north of $110 million.
Right on cue, Amazon.com has already begun taking pre-orders for Fast & Furious 6 on Blu-ray and DVD.
In second place on Friday was The Hangover Part III with $14.5 million. It’s two-day total now stands at $26.3 million and it should finish its first five days through Memorial Day at around $45 million or so.
Star Trek Into Darkness held strong amongst the big newcomers to land in third place with $10.2 million on Friday. The second Trek outing from J.J. Abrams has now reached $119 million and continues its march toward $150 million domestically.
The Blue Sky Studios film Epic took fourth for Fox with $9.35 million. With an “A” CinemaScore, it should pick up steam into the weekend and finish around $50 million through its first four days of release.
Marvel’s Iron Man 3 rounded out the top five on Friday with $5.1 million. It’s massive box office business now stands at $353.2 million in North America and $1.11 billion worldwide, good enough for seventh place on the all-time list.
We will check back on Sunday with the complete three and four day Memorial Day weekend studio box office estimates. Fast & Furious 6 could push the petal to as far as $125 million which would beg the question, can Fast & Furious 7 meet or exceed this film’s incredible opening?
