On Friday, its eighth day of release, F9: The Fast Saga became the fastest film to make $100M in 2020 or 2021 thanks to an $8.1M daily gross. Yes, that means it even outpaced Bad Boys For Life and Sonic The Hedgehog, which accomplished the feat on day 9 and 10, respectively in early 2020 before the pandemic began here.

Does this mean that F9 will outgross those films in total? Eh, not necessarily. Sonic, which finished with $148.9M, yes. But Bad Boys 3 finished at $206.3M, which is too high a figure for the ninth Fast & Furious flick to get to. This film isn’t as well liked as the best of the franchise (it’s the first since the 4th to not be fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), and with a biggie like Black Widow around the corner, it’s due for another big drop next weekend.

However, the latest Vin Diesel and family blockbuster will still make around $24M on the traditional 3-day weekend and $33M over the 4-day holiday weekend. This means it will have around $126M on Monday, and should be able to race towards $165M at least. That means F9 will in fact top A Quiet Place Part 2, something I was curious about since AQP2 has had great holds and dailies. However, I expect that John Krasinski directed sequel to finish between $155M and $160M.

The best case scenario for F9 is that it ends up closer to $190M. The reason it could hold better than expected is because it’s one of the only major biggies being released this summer, and folks who crave giant action on the big screen will have few options. If it doesn’t fall off a cliff against the latest MCU movie next weekend, then it’ll have a real shot at bigger grosses stateside.

As for overseas, the movie will be over $500M total worldwide sometime this weekend, with its biggest market being China, where it took in $217M and is about all wrapped up. While that’s not as big as Furious 7 ($391M) or Fate of the Furious ($392.8M) were in the Middle Kingdom, it’s still a huge number and much bigger than any of the other Fast movies in China. It’s also bigger than any superhero solo movie except for Venom ($272M in China alone) and Aquaman ($298.3M in China alone).

So yes, F9: The Fast Saga is a huge success at the box office, and is currently looking to finish between $625M and $725M worldwide. That makes it the biggest American film of 2020 and 2021 so far (topping Godzilla vs Kong‘s eventual $465M total). I expect Black Widow to be able to beat F9 domestically, but I don’t think BW can beat it worldwide. I’m hoping for bigger and bigger grosses as we go, so I’d be excited if it did.

Either way, F9 will make more money than any of the first five movies in the Fast franchise. Not bad for a twenty year old series, especially during a pandemic.

Published by Seth Dayrich

Founder of WSYS and writer of two motion pictures (Catching Summer, Dan's Humongous Apartment) and a play (The Restaurant Tango). View all posts by Seth Dayrich