Fast & Furious 6 $122 Million Box Office Drives Memorial Day Weekend Record

While Hollywood has suffered from a lot of high-profile flops at the box office in 2013, things seem to be shifting into high gear, thanks in large part to superheroes and fast cars. Iron Man 3 helped to get the month of May started with a bang, and now Fast & Furious 6 has helped the box office set a Memorial Day weekend record.While early estimates had predicted Fast & Furious 6 would premiere with a $100 million over the four day Memorial Day weekend, positive buzz helped the film perform even better than the already high expectations. The latest projections show that Fast & Furious 6 will rake in $122 million at the box offer over the Memorial Day weekend.Other new releases didn’t fare as well, but still did good enough that the U.S. box office is on target to bring in over $300 million during the Memorial Day weekend, which will set a new record. The previous highest Memorial Day weekend on record was $276 million, which was powered by The Hangover Part II back in 2011.Speaking of The Hangover, The Hangover Part III also premiered this weekend with a projected $53 million, which is less than half the premiere of the previous installment in the franchise. The animated movie Epic was the third major new release this weekend, and it’s on track to bring in $44 million over the four day weekend.