The Fast & Furious franchise, thrown into doubt after the death of the actor Paul Walker, has emerged stronger than ever as Universal Pictures plans more in a series that has so far earned an estimated profit of US$1.37 billion.
Furious 7 – partly filmed in Abu Dhabi – may collect $119 million in ticket sales in its opening weekend and $283m in its entire theatre run in the US and Canada, according to BoxOffice.com. That would make it the richest Fast & Furious ever, a rare feat for a franchise that is more than a decade old. “To be seven movies deep and for it to be the most successful tells me there is a lot of potential to keep going,” said Phil Contrino, Boxoffice.com’s chief analyst.
Universal may make at least three more Furious movies, according to Donna Langley, the chairwoman of the Comcast-owned studio. The first six recorded $2.38bn in global ticket sales, based on data from the researcher Box Office Mojo.
Now Furious 7 will help Universal in the race for the top spot in what is likely to be the US box office’s biggest year in history. The studio has the third-largest market share so far this year, behind Time Warner’s Warner Bros and 21st Century Fox’s film unit. Last year was the most profitable Universal’s film unit has had, according to Comcast, with $711m in operating cash flow, a measure of earnings. The studio has already scored this year with Fifty Shades of Grey, and still to come are the potential blockbusters Jurassic World and Minions. Matthew Harrigan, an analyst at Wunderlich Securities, said this year’s operating cash flow could be $846m.
Walker died in November 2013 when the Porsche Carrera GT his business partner, Roger Rodas, was driving slammed into a light post and a tree. Rodas also died. Furious 7 was in the middle of filming and was completed with computer-generated imagery and Walker’s two brothers helping to finish the late actor’s scenes.
Ms Langley said in a November interview with The Hollywood Reporter that there were at least three more films to make. While the studio has not discussed details, the next episode is set in New York, the actor Vin Diesel has said.
“You can be certain that the loss of the Paul Walker character will set the course for the next three films, and the audience will be right there with them,” said Jeff Gomez, the chief executive of the consulting firm Starlight Runner Entertainment.
“They are now following multi-picture arcs, similar to what we’re seeing in Star Wars.”
The first film, The Fast and the Furious in 2001, cost $38m to make, according to Box Office Mojo. The production budget for Furious 7 was $190m, according to a studio official.
Wade Holden, an analyst with SNL Kagan, said he determined the profitability of the first six was $1.37bn using public information and his own estimates on production and marketing costs and revenue from ticket sales, video-on-demand fees and other sources. (In the US, studios split income from ticket sales with movie theatres.)
The fifth and six films generated $396m and $421.7m in profit, respectively, Mr Holden estimates. Furious 7 could be even more lucrative, although the larger budget “may weigh down net profit to some extent”, he said.
Fast & Furious 6 cost $160m, according to Box Office Mojo. Furious 7 will sell more opening weekend tickets than any other movie so far this year and will also overtake Captain America: The Winter Soldier as the film with the biggest opening ever in April, Mr Contrino said. He said foreign tickets sales were likely to surpass the $550m recorded by Furious 6.
Diesel told the trade publication Variety that the new Furious should win the best-picture Oscar, “unless the Oscars don’t want to be relevant ever”.
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