The box office fate of “Fast and Furious 8,” whose original title translates as “The Fate of the Fast and the Furious,” could have been easily predicted. And these predictions came true to the fullest. As expected, the film at the global box office crossed the coveted threshold of a billion dollars in box office receipts, more precisely 1.1 billion. Of these, 361 million were collected in China alone. This is an absolute record in this country for all films – both domestic and foreign, the distribution of which, as is known, is limited to 34 films per year.
The total collection outside North America (the US and Canada, which form the so-called “home” market) was $867.6 million. And “at home” there are only 192.7 million. But who, as they say, counted when a billion is a billion!
If we still count the results of this weekend in the US and Canada, then the $19.4 million earned brought the film into first place. In the rest of the world, the film grossed $68.4 million this weekend.
We must assume that “Fast and Furious 8” will maintain its leadership until the release of the science-fiction comic book “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. Part 2,” which has already opened in 37 countries this weekend with a promising $101 million.
Well, then the “home” box office presented several surprises. The first, the new techno-thriller “Sphere,” starring movie stars Tom Hanks and Emma Watson (“Beauty and the Beast”), practically failed at the box office, collecting only $9.3 million from 3,160 screens (this is a very wide release!) and ranked only fourth place. It doesn’t seem so bad, “Sphere” even beat out the popular cartoon “The Boss Baby,” which took fifth place with $9.1 million.
But when you look at who finished in second and third place this weekend, you have to pay attention to the changing ethnographic composition of the American viewing audience, which reflects the general trend of a decrease in the number of white Americans among viewers.
So, second place with 12 million grosses was taken by the comedy “How to Be a Latin Lover.” There’s clearly a disproportionate number of Latinos in the audience, even though the film is mostly in English. By the way, Latinos (people with Latin American roots and knowledge of Spanish) are becoming an increasingly significant part of the US population and, accordingly, movie viewers.
Likewise, the contribution of people from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to the success of the Indian epic Baahubali: The End, which took third place with $10.1 million in box office receipts, cannot be underestimated.