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Universal’s Fast X has started its engines overseas, opening notably in China and Korea on Wednesday and clocking $18.4M from just those two markets.
The Louis Leterrier-directed franchise instalment got off to a strong start in China, taking an estimated $17.4M today, including $2.7M from midnight shows. It’s dominating the market with 84% of the total box office and has a great 9 from audiences on Maoyan. This is above F9’s 7.8.
The Wednesday is also the No. 4 biggest opening day for a studio film in China since the beginning of the pandemic and the other films ahead of it all opened on a Friday rather than a non-holiday Wednesday. It’s especially encouraging given sentiment towards Hollywood movies in the market has been tepid of late to say the least. The score is 84% of the Friday launch of Avatar: The Way of Water and 2.6x the Friday opening of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which itself provided some salve recently.
Still, the opening day results are below other films in the franchise (which opened on a weekend day and in a different climate in China). Fast X‘s Wednesday came in 57% below Hobbs & Shaw and 68% below F9. Compared to other Wednesday launches, FX is in the range of Avengers: Age of Ultron and Jurassic World.
Although China has been a huge market for the Fast & Furious franchise, it remains a swing here given recent uncertainties. We’ll be watching it closely throughout the weekend.
Korea also opened today with $1M and 60% market share. That’s 86% of F8, 30% above F7 and below both F9 and Hobbs & Shaw which opened on national holidays. The audience reactions are strong with a 94% CGV Egg score, above F9’s 89%.
Also opening today were such majors as France and Germany. We’ll have those numbers tomorrow. In total Fast X releases this weekend in 84 overseas markets.
Updates to come…