EXCLUSIVE: Universal’s Fast and Furious spinoff Hobbs & Shaw starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham is currently seeing a Thursday night that’s between $4.5M-$5M. East coast shows are already in full swing with west coast starting at 7PM PST. This is a bid by Uni to take their $5 billion-plus Fast & Furious series to another level, spinning it off potentially into another franchise. We will see. Pic’s Rotten Tomatoes score is settling at 71% Fresh, which isn’t awful, it’s just that movie execs like to see better.
While tonight’s numbers, as expected, are well below some of the most recent Furious films, i.e. Furious 7 ($15.8M) and Fate of the Furious ($10.4M), that was to be expected because the Dominic Toretto gang isn’t all here.
Outside of the Furious series, Hobbs & Shaw will likely be Johnson’s highest preview for a live-action pic besting the Thursdays of San Andreas ($3.1M), Rampage ($2.4M) and Skyscraper ($1.95M). It’s also higher than Statham’s The Meg from last August which made $4M in previews, and higher than Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation ($4M Thursday, $20.3M Friday, $55.5M opening). At this point in time, Hobbs & Shaw is under Mission: Impossible-Fallout‘s $6M preview which translated into a $22.8M Friday, $61.2M opening.
Typically, Fast & Furious movies overindex on the West Coast and deliver a huge Hispanic turnout. The night isn’t over for Hobbs & Shaw, so we’ll see what comes.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros. has dropped their trailer to Christopher Nolan’s next international espionage movie Tenet on prints of Hobbs & Shaw. This is exclusively theatrical as Nolan believes in the moviegoing experience, with no word as to when the trailer will drop online. Word is that the teaser doesn’t show a lot of action, just star John David Washington, along with the tagline “It’s time for a new protagonist.”