Theater Counts (updated): Fate of the Furious Takes Flight in 4,310 Theaters

April 13, 2017

The Fate of the Furious will break a record on Friday before a single person sits down in a movie theater: the film will become the widest live action release in Universal’s history when doors open tomorrow. The studio announced today that it will play in a gargantuan 4,311 locations [ed note: on Friday morning, that count was revised to 4,310, which doesn’t change any of the record rankings]. That’s the 12th-widest opening in history, and overtakes Jurassic World, which debuted in 4,274 theaters in 2015, as Universal’s biggest live action release. (Their widest release of all time, by the way, is the animated The Secret Life of Pets, which started out in 4,370 theaters.)

An opening weekend over half of Jurassic World’s $208 million would make the studio happy, and expectations are for at least that. Our prediction is $116 million, although one can’t entirely rule the film out from taking a crack at the April record of $147 million set by Furious 7 two years ago.

With a juggernaut bearing down on them, other studios have pretty much cleared the road this weekend. Open Road is opening Spark: A Space Tail in 365 theaters, and it won’t make much of a dent at the box office.

Instead, The Boss Baby and Beauty and the Beast will fight it out for second place, in spite of both losing theaters. Boss Baby is down by 86 venues to 3,743, and Beauty loses 377 to play in 3,592. The films are likely to have similar theater averages, so Boss Baby will have the edge overall.

We’re still waiting for some estimated theater counts for next weekend, but it doesn’t currently look as though Fate of the Furious will have much competition, with Unforgettable debuting in just 2,350 theaters, and Born in China in 1,500. [Friday update:] Phoenix Forgotten will also start out in approximately 1,500 theaters for newcomer Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures.

Updated Thursday, 5pm with IFC theater counts.

Updated Friday, 8am with A24 theater counts.

Updated Friday, 11am with updated Universal counts.

Updated Friday, 4pm with estimate for Phoenix Forgotten.

Bruce Nash

Filed under: Theater Counts