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    HomeEntertainmentRevving To $65 Million Opening Weekend After $7.5M Thursday – Deadline

    Revving To $65 Million Opening Weekend After $7.5M Thursday – Deadline

    LATE FRIDAY PM: The Louis Leterrier-directed tenthquel’s Friday is now at $27.5M, now 8% behind that of F9‘s for a slightly higher $66M start. CinemaScore for Fast X came in at B+, the same grade as F9, both being down from latter sequel highs of Fate of the Furious (A), Furious 7 (A) and Hobbs & Shaw (A-) — all of which interestingly enough starred Dwayne Johnson. We’ll have more demo diagnostics in the AM.

    Fast X is one of two Universal tentpoles this summer next to Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, so it stands to reason they’d program the film’s marketing campaign like D-Day. This all started for the film with the Super Bowl 60-second trailer spot which was preceded by nine custom legacy trailers that revisited each of the film’s chapters, followed by a trailer debut event with Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, and Sung Kang in downtown Los Angeles for over 1K Fast fans. 

    Jason Momoa in ‘Fast X’

    Universal

    The second trailer for Fast X included a remix of Daddy Yankee’s hit song “Gasolina” by Myke Towers and Safari Riot which won over Latino and Hispanic audiences with an integration and custom spot at the Latin American Music Awards and increased awareness with YouTube Hispanic Reach Accelerator and TikTok Latin Pulse media buys.

    In addition to in-theater placements alongside big movies like Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania, Cocaine Bear, Creed III, John Wick: Chapter 4, and The Super Mario Bros Movie, the two trailers raced up over 750M digital views.

    A targeted sports presence was critical to build the Fast X‘s mojo. There was a custom spot with Bronny James and Vin Diesel, which was posted on social by Bronny’s father, LeBron James.

    Building off that spot, Fast X had a presence throughout the NBA Playoffs including an appearance by Vin Diesel, on-court signage in Round 1 and placements throughout the conference semifinals and western and eastern conference finals. Additional spots ran during March Madness, Premier League Soccer, WWE, and UFC.

    Fast X took over the streets of Los Angeles and New York an Uber Blitz with additional targeting in Miami during F1 and New Jersey during UFC. The Fast X campaign brought the family to the F1 Miami Grand Prix where Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez participated in a Sky Sports Grand Prix opener broadcast in 80 countries and an F1 interview with McLaren where they met their fleet of drivers. Rodriguez took a Hot Lap with McLaren, and Ludacris joined Vin Diesel and Rodriguez on Race Day for numerous on-air hits.

    Among pushes to the franchise’s core multicultural audience, there was a broadcast integration with the Latin American Music Awards, while the soundtrack’s artist Maria Becerra had a custom spot for Billboard’s Latin Women in Music Awards. Vin Diesel appeared in J. Balvin’s upcoming “Toretto” music video. Fast X also had Telemundo integrations for LIGA MX Quarter FinalsWomen’s World Cup, and Top Chef VIP.

    Among the shows that Fast X aired spots on were FX’s Snowfall series finale, Family Guy9-1-1The VoiceSurvivorAmerican IdolThe Masked SingerStation 19SNLMTV Movie & TV Awards, and Fear of the Walking Dead premiere. Fast X also dominated digital screens with a YouTube cost per hour masthead, YouTube Coachella Weekend 1 sponsorship, and high-impact takeovers on Meta, Vevo, TikTok, Hulu, IMDb, Fandango, Flixster, Rotten Tomatoes, Peacock, and Paramount+.

    And of course, the tentpole was promoted via NBCUniversal’s Symphony program, which tubthumbs the movie throughout the conglom’s tenacles including an NBCU Fate Of The Furious theme night, spots in NBC’s coverage of The Kentucky Derby and a Xfinity 10G campaign, and outdoor splashes Universal Theme Parks in Hollywood and Orlando.

    FRIDAY AFTERNOON: Universal’s Fast X is heading down a road that it was expected to in the U.S, with a $27M Friday on its way to $65M at 4,046 locations. This is to be expected for a long-in-the-tooth franchise, especially a sequel that’s arriving a quick two years after 2021’s F9 ($70M opening).

    Fast X‘s Friday includes $7.5M Thursday previews. That Friday figure (plus previews) is 9% behind the same first day/Thursday haul of F9 which was $29.8M. That movie already jumped the shark and took a couple of the Fast goes to space? What to do now? Add Jason Momoa as the main bad guy to the mix. And as it was said, when it comes to Uni making bank on this $300M+ production, it’s all about overseas. International through two days is pushing near $70M. With a running total of $37M, Fast X is seeing the biggest blast off for a Hollywood studio title in China year to date.

    Courtesy Everett Collection

    Disney/Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 at 4,450 theaters is looking at an estimated $8.2m Friday for a third weekend of $32.7M, -46% for a running total of $267.2M. That’s a really good hold considering Universal took all the pic’s PLF and Imax screens. That third weekend amount is not that far from GOTG2‘s $34.6M (-47%), and 30% ahead of the third session of GOTG‘s $25.1M (-40%).

    Illumination/Universal/Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros at 3,540 theaters is eying a $2.2M Friday, and a seventh weekend of $9.5M, -25%, for a running total of $549M.

    Focus Features’ second weekend of Book Club: The Next Chapter at 3,513 theaters is looking at $3M, -55%, in fourth place for a $13.1M ten-day take. Friday is around $900K.

    New Line’s Evil Dead Rise at 2,173 theaters is spotting $630K Friday and a fifth weekend $2.2M in 5th, -42%, and a running cume by Sunday of $63.9M.

    PREVIOUS FRIDAY AM: Universal’s Fast X, in what was an early start for previews for the franchise at 2 p.m., sparked to $7.5 million in Thursday numbers. Forecasts see the Louis Leterrier-directed tenthquel at a $60 million-plus stateside frame this weekend, with a greater amount of gas abroad at $235 million.

    How last night stacks up: The previous F9 in 2021 saw Thursday previews of $7.1M after showtimes that began at 7 p.m., which led to a $70M opening in the first summer of fully re-opened cinemas from Covid.

    The franchise’s best Thursday numbers came from 2015’s Furious 7 ($15.8M, $147.1M 3-day) and 2017’s Fate of the Furious ($10.4M, $98.7M 3-day). Before the 2013 Memorial Day holiday, Fast & Furious 6 did $7.5M from late-night shows that began at 10 p.m. That resulted in a $97.3M three-day total, and $117M over four days.

    Fast X revs to a total of 4,048 North American theaters today.

    RELATED: Vin Diesel Says A 12th ‘Fast & Furious’ Film Will “Probably” Be Made

    Deadline’s Nancy Tartaglione will have more updates this morning on the international front, but Fast X, which stars series newcomers Jason Momoa and Brie Larson, already had a big day abroad with $58.6M. It made $25.7M through Thursday out of China, and posted Wednesday numbers of $32.9M from 38 markets. The pic was No. 1 in every territory it debuted including China, France, Germany and Korea. 

    Social media authority RelishMix reports: “Will the absence of late-night talk-show appearances soften the impact on the Fast X campaign as well as the rained-out F1 race in Italy this weekend? As the most robust social franchise for action adventure films, the social digital super-stats and awareness levels on the tenth movie are clocking super-social media levels at 1.3B across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok combined. Core levels are above historic norms. This campaign extends even further across Twitter and TikTok as view levels are balanced across platforms — as well with the Big Game spot from Super Bowl 57, which saw a boost of 94.1M views for its trailer online in the 24-hours following the game.”

    Fast X‘s social media reach heading into opening is under Fate of the Furious near 1.9 billion and a modicum above F9‘s 1.29 billion.

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