Fast X in 2023 kind of killed all major pop culture momentum the Fast & Furious movies had. What used to be a zippy saga full of earnest monologues about “family” mixed with ludicrous stuntwork had become a bloated blockbuster crammed too full of cameos, listless subplots, and forgettable villains. Not even Jason Momoa giving 110% or Sung Kang accidentally ingesting drug-laced muffins could liven up a franchise this far past its prime. Still, this saga wasn’t always in such sloppy shape. On the contrary, ten years ago, when Furious 7 was hitting theaters, the franchise was arguably in its strongest place creatively and financially.
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People were lining up around the block to see entries in this saga, with this particular entry’s handling of the tragic passing of Paul Walker making it especially a must-see tentpole for many. Furious 7’s impact on pop culture is especially apparent in how this movie’s box office run forever changed what the April box office landscape looks like.
Furious 7 Left All Other April Movies in the Box Office Dust
Until 2009, the biggest April opening weekend in history belonged to the Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson comedy Anger Management, which opened to $42.22 million. In fact, up to 2009, only two movies opened to $40+ million over domestic April opening weekends (Scary Movie 4 being the only other feature). Then Fast & Furious showed up over the April 3, 2009 frame and grossed $70.95 million, an eye-popping sum that redefined how big April movies could be. Fast Five in 2011 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier in 2014 further upended the ceiling for April opening weekends with $86 and $95 million bows, respectively.
However, it was Furious 7 that really shattered records in this month with its $147.1 million domestic bow in April 2015. The first movie in history to crack $100+ million in its domestic opening weekend in April had too many box office achievements to count. That three-day bow was already more than the entirety of The Fast and the Furious’s $144.7 million lifetime domestic cume in 2001 and more than 50% ahead of The Winter Soldier’s opening weekend. At the time, that was also the ninth biggest opening weekend in domestic box office history, edging out pre-Thanksgiving hits like The Twilight Saga: New Moon and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.
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These numbers were staggering from every angle, including how they improved 53% on Fast & Furious 6’s $97 million domestic opening weekend from May 2013. How many franchises had such a drastic opening weekend increase from the sixth to the seventh installment? How many saw any kind of opening weekend jump when a saga shifted from a summertime launch to a spring corridor? Furious 7 had done the impossible and took the Fast & Furious saga to domestic opening weekend highs the franchise has never replicated. To boot, Furious 7’s opening weekend record would forever reshape where Hollywood launched its blockbusters.
The Lingering Impact of Furious 7
After Fast & Furious in 2009, Hollywood did begin to deliver more blockbusters in April, such as Clash of the Titans, Oblivion, and The Winter Soldier. However, Furious 7 really heightened this month’s importance to the industry. Just a year later, The Jungle Book would score a gargantuan opening and go on to secure a $364-million domestic finish. Ending its run as the biggest movie in North America to open in April (at the time), The Jungle Book proved Furious 7 was no fluke. Massive moneymakers could be launched in a month that once belonged to Anger Management and Scary Movie 4.
Three years after Furious 7, Disney and Marvel Studios pushed Avengers: Infinity War to open over April 2017’s final weekend rather than the first frame of May that Marvel movies typically launched in. Even with The Winter Soldier making a pretty penny in April 2014, it’s hard to imagine the Mouse House launching something as costly as Infinity War in April without Furious 7 paving the way. Thanks to this Vin Diesel blockbuster, though, Infinity War secured a release date that led to it scoring the biggest domestic opening weekend in history.
Today, Infinity War’s sequel, Avengers: Endgame (launched in April 2019), now has that record for largest North American bow. Back in the mid-2000s, it would’ve been impossible to comprehend that the largest domestic opening ever could come from an April release. In the 2020s, though, that’s just business as usual, as massive moneymakers like The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 have opened in this month. These box office hits are all building on a legacy that starts with Furious 7’s revved-up engines. Long before audiences would shrug at titles like Fast X, Furious 7 smashed box office records that forever changed moviegoing habits and major studio scheduling norms.
Furious 7 is now streaming on fuboTV.
