Weekend Estimates: Fate’s $100 Million Stateside Dwarfed by Huge International Haul
April 16, 2017
The Fate of the Furious is, as expected, posting great opening numbers domestically, with Universal projecting a $100.2 million opening weekend, but the real news this weekend is the record breaking in international markets. Helped by a gigantic $190 million in China—the biggest-ever three-day weekend in that territory—Fate is headed for an overseas debut of $432.2 million, according to the studio. That’s easily the biggest international weekend of all time, beating Jurassic World’s $316.7 million. It’s also ahead of the inflation-adjusted international opening for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II, which earned $314 million on its first weekend internationally, roughly equivalent to $375 million today.
Fate is expected to have the biggest weekend of all time in 17 territories: Argentina, China, Colombia, Egypt, Indonesia, Israel, Lebanon, Malaysia, Middle East, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Portugal, South Africa, U.A.E., Venezuela, and Vietnam. According to the studio, it’s the best for Universal in four more: Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, and Mexico. In eleven more territories, it doesn’t break those records, but is the best for the franchise: Croatia, Czech Republic, Iceland, Hong Kong, Korea, Lithuania, Paraguay, Philippines, Slovakia, Ukraine, and the U.K. and Ireland.
Those are all proud achievements, but looking at the numbers from individual markets really tells the story. China’s $190 million absolutely dwarfs everything else. Mexico is the second-best territory, with $17.8 million, and that figure is down a bit from Furious 7’s $21.7 million debut there, according to our figures (Universal ranks the new movie above the previous outing). The UK and Ireland contributes about $17 million, which is only a fraction of the best weekend in that territory—Spectre’s $63.8 million—and well behind the $50.7 million earned by The Force Awakens. Russia comes next with $14.1 million (a little behind the $15.9 million earned by the previous installment). Then Germany, with $13.6 million, compared to $16.1 million for Furious 7.
The story is pretty consistent for the big territories, with slight declines or modest increases from the previous installment. Other grosses Universal is reporting so far are Brazil $12.8M; France $10.5M; Korea $10.5M; India $10.4M; Taiwan $9.7M; Australia $9.6M; Middle East Combined $9.3M; Indonesia $9M; Argentina $8.3M; Malaysia $6.8M; Italy $6.7M; Spain $6.1M; Colombia $5M; Thailand $4.7M; and Panama $4.6M.
In all, Furious 7 opened with $245 million internationally, but, crucially, that figure did not include China, where it opened with $94.4 million two weeks later. Fate of the Furious will open with almost exactly the same amount internationally outside China, with $242.3 million, based on the studio’s Sunday estimate. That China number, which is the fourth-best weekend in any territory, ever, behind the three top-earners in the domestic market, makes all the difference.
It seems a bit churlish to make one further note (but I’ll make it anyway!). Chinese regulations limit the studios to a 25% share of box office receipts, so that $190 million is equivalent to something around an $80 million debut in the US and Canada, so far as ultimate revenue to the studio is concerned. It hardly makes a difference in the grand scheme of things, because the film will be insanely profitable, and every other studio would kill for a franchise like this, but it does highlight the complications of the growing influence of foreign markets on the studios’ bottom lines.
Domestically, there’s also a tiny bit of concern about the performance of the film through the weekend. It was down 31% on Saturday from its opening day, to $31.75 million, which is a pretty big drop. With another drop of 29%, to $22.58 million, expected today, the film will barely top $100 million, according to Universal’s estimate. Easter weekend complicates projections, and it’s worth noting that The Boss Baby and Smurfs: The Lost Village were both down 14% yesterday, as families went in search of Easter eggs. Fate of the Furious obviously skews much older, but we won’t know for a while how much of its dip through the weekend is due to the holiday, and how much is due to fanboy frontloading. One telling statistic, though, is that our model projected a weekend around $110 million, based on Thursday previews and Friday’s box office, and Universal (who would have factored in pre-sales for Saturday and Sunday) were predicting around $104 million yesterday. So Easter might have shaved about $10 million off the ultimate opening weekend.
With Fate of the Furious dominating in theaters, pretty much every other film struggled to find an audience. Gifted will earn $3 million in its first weekend in wide release, which is relatively soft, but not disastrous. Spark: A Space Tail is looking disastrous, with just $112,352 expected from 365 theaters, and an average of $308 per theater.
In brighter news, Chasing Trane will earn about $15,880 in a single theater, and The Lost City of Z and Norman are both posting great figures in limited release. We don’t have official estimates for either yet, but look for around $120,000 from four locations for the former, and $100,000 from five for the latter.
- Biggest weekends in April
- Fate of the Furious comparison chart
- Biggest days in April
- Biggest 5th weekends
- Smurfs: The Lost Village comparison chart
- Going in Style comparison chart
- The Boss Baby comparison chart
- Beauty and the Beast comparison chart
Filed under: Weekend Estimates, The Lost City of Z, Smurfs: The Lost Village, The Boss Baby, The Fate of the Furious, Gifted, Spark: A Space Tail, Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer, Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary