Vin Diesel in Fast & Furious
Who says action films can't address today's most pressing international issues? Fast & Furious, the fourth episode in Universal's car-chase franchise, tells the story of professional drivers toting heroin across the border into California and corralling the villainous Mr. Big. The movie solves the auto-buying drought and the Mexican drug wars in one huge testosterone fantasy.
It also gave Hollywood a humungous jolt of high-octane gas — or should we say Diesel? Vin Diesel, who a few years back was a fan favorite as the thug-hero of The Chronicles of Riddick and xXx, returned to glory as the stolid stud behind the wheel and helped drive his new vehicle to record-breaking numbers. Earning an estimated $72.5 million in its first three days, F&F had the biggest opening not only of any 2009 film but also of any movie released in the normally somnolent month of April. (Previous top dog of the cruelest month: the Adam Sandler–Jack Nicholson Anger Management, which picked up $42 million six years ago.) F&F also cadged $30.1 million internationally, bringing its three-day cume to $102.6 million. (See TIME's auto special: "The 50 Worst Cars Ever Made")
The impressiveness of the car-nage epic's take also surprised the industry analysts who had predicted a weekend figure in the $40 millions; some had thought F&F might finish second to last week's winner, Monsters vs Aliens. Instead, it more than doubled the second-weekend numbers of the DreamWorks animated comedy — though $33.5 million isn't a measly amount for a movie everybody rushed to way back in late March.
Sunday-morning quarterbacks in the Hollywood press attributed F&F's gigantic gross to the producers' simple trick of reuniting the quartet of leading actors from the 2001 original: Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez. Well, O.K., but what individual star power do these folks have? What hits have they headlined? Anyone who can spontaneously name the last film that each of these four starred in deserves a share of F&F's profits. (Or spends too much time fishing through the video-store discount bin. The answers, in case you were wondering, are Babylon A.D., The Lazarus Project, A Cat's Tale and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.)
Clearly, it's not the stars' realignment in a familiar franchise that pulled in the mobs — nor the mass audience's need to go out with their friends and see the nominally new version of a picture they liked a few years back on the big screen. This fact alone should hearten industry people fretful that their target demographic will soon desert the big screen for smaller ones, with their new-millennial lure of downloads and DVDs. F&F proves there's no significant change in the basic impulse of young moviegoers: escape from Planet Home.
While F&F had plenty in the tank, the week's other wide release, Adventureland, just plain tanked. It finished a sad sixth. Fewer than a million patrons paid to see Superbad director Greg Mottola's reminiscence of an '80s summer he spent working in an amusement park. Apparently most of those who wanted a reverberation of their Superbad vibe stayed home and watched star Seth Rogen, who ubiquitously promoted his next-week's movie, Observe and Report, on Letterman, The Daily Show, Saturday Night Live and quite possibly the Home Shopping Network.
Among the also-rans, The Haunting of Connecticut scared up $9.6 million in its second weekend, and the three big releases from a fortnight ago — the Nic Cage Knowing, the buddy comedy I Love You, Man and Julia Roberts' Duplicity — filled out the other slots in the top seven. Wrestling star John Cera's 12 Rounds continued its flabby run, and the Amy Adams indie comedy Sunshine Cleaning broke into the top 10.
The underperforming of Duplicity, Roberts' first flat-out starring role in more than five years, has cued epidemic amounts of head-scratching from the industry solons. Is it just that the masses don't want to see sophisticated espionage capers starring, ugh, a girl? For now, let's not put the burden on Julia. Best to blame the title, which promises the average moviegoer nothing except a problem pronouncing it to the multiplex ticket seller. Only two live-action films with one-word, four-syllable titles have ever grossed more than $100 million total; and the two that did, Phenomenon and Collateral, just barely scraped that number.
People in other countries go to the movies too, though the international box-office results aren't widely noted here. But for a fan of that endangered species, foreign films, it's cheering to note that movies Americans have never heard of can pull in blockbuster numbers. Recent global winners include the French comedy Welcome to the Sticks, at $243 million; the first installment of the two-part Red Cliff, John Woo's return to Chinese-language action films, starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Takeshi Kaneshiro, which has taken in $125 million; and Hayao Miyazaki's charming animé for kids, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, earning $177 million. U.S. fans of Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away) will be pleased to hear that Disney will be releasing the film in the States this summer. Meanwhile, the No.1 international film last week was Slumdog Millionaire, which has taken in $170.6 million in foreign markets along with its $139.7 million in North America.
But all that is filler to the executives in Universal City, popping champagne over the F&F gross. No question but that there'll be a fifth movie in the cycle. Shall the studio bosses take inspiration from Lewis Carroll, and call the next film Furiouser & Furiouser?
The official estimation of the top 10 finishers, as reported by Box Office Mojo:
1. Fast & Furious, $72.5 million, first weekend
2. Monsters vs. Aliens, $33.5 million; $105.7 million in 10 days
3. The Haunting in Connecticut, $9.6 million; $37.2 million in 10 days
4. Knowing, $8.1 million; $58.2 million in 17 days
5. I Love You, Man, $7.9 million; $49.3 million in 17 days
6. Adventureland, $6 million, first weekend
7. Duplicity, $ 4.3 million; $32.4 million in 17 days
8. Race to Witch Mountain, $3.4 million; $58.4 million in 24 days
9. 12 Rounds, $2.3 million; $9 million in 10 days
10. Sunshine Cleaning, $1.9 million; $4.8 million in 24 days