Fast X's Box Office Gross: A Prediction

As I remarked a while ago, my estimates about what Marvel movies will make are predicated on there being plenty of data at this point from which to make them--much more than is the case for other films, even when they are part of a franchise. (Speculating about Indiana Jones 5, for example, there was much less to go on--especially because not only was there only one other Indiana Jones film in the past thirty-three years, but because there is so little else like it out there in the market.)

It seems to me that the Fast and Furious franchise merits some comment here--the series, after all, in its tenth movie in twenty-three years, thus providing a basis for such guesses.

Of course, making sense of that data has its challenges. In line with the wild changes in the series' premise and casting (we went from a story about Southland truck hijackers who like to drag race to "the Rock-punches-a-torpedo spy-fi"), the series' grosses have been volatile, with the third movie representing a low for the series' fortunes, but recovery subsequently setting in, with the next four films going from strength to strength--hitting a peak with the extraordinary response to Fast 7. (Grossing $1.5 billion in the summer of 2015, this is equal to over $1.9 billion--almost $2 billion--in March 2023 dollars.) Still, if the series remains one of the biggest moneymakers around--and even more impressive if one cuts out the superhero films—its films' grosses have seen erosion since, with the eighth film not doing as well, and the ninth less well than that (in part because of the pandemic, by the lowered standards of which its earnings were very impressive indeed).

Simple induction suggests that the declining trend is likely to carry over to the tenth in some fashion. But how exactly?

Adjusted for those 2023 dollars Fast 7 (again) made $1.9 billion, the eighth movie (The Fate of the Furious) about $1.5 billion--a rough 20 percent drop. The ninth film took in about $800 million in 2023 terms--a bigger, almost 50 percent, drop, from what "F8" made, but again there was the pandemic. One might estimate on the basis of the prior shift from film to film that in its absence one would have seen another 20 percent drop, in which case it would have ended up with $1.2 billion in today's terms (not unreasonable given the proportion by which so many movies seemed to be off from their normal grosses during that patch). Anticipating another 20 percent drop from that level one could picture Fast X making a bit under $1 billion.

How does this compare with the increasingly detailed picture we have now with the film's release just ten days away? Boxoffice Pro recently told us that the movie is on track for a $65-$70 million North American opening--about what F9 made during the pandemic in current dollar terms ($70 million).* As is not uncommon for blockbusters of this type, the three prior Fast films took in about 40 percent of the money from their domestic run during the first three days, which suggests a gross from the whole theatrical run in the $160-$175 million range.

In considering this one should remember that the films have relied heavily on their overseas earnings, with the last three films making between 76 and a truly extraordinary 82 percent of their gross there. Extrapolating from the domestic gross this implies a plausible range of between $515 and $780 million abroad for between $675 and $960 million globally (the high end of the range, notably, equivalent to the result of the 20 percent-of-the-gross-per-film-erosion being carried forward to #10); with the $800 million in between more or less a match for how the ninth film did.

So what does this leave us in the end? A North American gross in the $150-$200 million range to be on the safe side, and a relevant global range of $650 million to $950 million or so to be equally safe at that level, with my best guess at a more precise figure inclining toward the middle of this range--$170 million domestic and $750-$850 million worldwide.

The result is that we again have a case of numbers that look very strong indeed by the "normal" standard--but are nonetheless not to be judged by that standard, given the distance they represent from the series' peak (a mere 40 percent, perhaps, of what Fast 7 took in, and less even than one might have hoped from what F9 took in); and the extraordinary outlay to make this movie (a staggering $340 million), which may call its plain and simple profitability into question, the movie failing to break even after counting in the post-theatrical earnings from home entertainment, etc..

The possibility, like the prospects of Indiana Jones 5, reminds us that we may be looking not just at "Marvel fatigue," or even "superhero fatigue," but fatigue with the blockbuster as we know it, perhaps in era-ending degree. Still, Hollywood remains a long way from facing that, and anyway never gives up on any franchise no matter how exhausted and riddled with losses it is (as the ever more pointless reiterations of the Terminator demonstrate). Already it seems we have word of a Fast 11 in the works, while I half expect that we will someday be seeing James Mangold enlisted to make a movie about Old Man Dom confronting what he knows in his very old bones will be his last race, prior to the inevitable reboot.

* This works out to $78 million in March 2023 dollars, meaning that Fast X's opening weekend gross is estimated to be a good deal less than what the prior movie made when the pandemic's impact on moviegoing was so much larger.