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Fast X box office performance, analysed
Fast X has started the beginning of the end for the Fast Saga, but could the road be running out in a different sense for the series too?
Ahead of its release, the new movie received the worst reviews for a Fast & Furious outing since 2009's Fast & Furious. It currently stands at 55% on Rotten Tomatoes with criticisms over its length, overstuffed story and bloated cast.
Fast X fared better with audiences (85% audience score, B+ CinemaScore), but still only managed to deliver a $67 million US debut. That's the lowest-grossing bow since Hobbs & Shaw ($60 million) in terms of the overall series, and lower than every other 'main' Fast movie since Fast & Furious ($71 million).
But now that it's into its third week of release, has Fast X managed to get back on track box office-wise? Let's delve into the numbers.
Fast X box office: How much money has Fast X taken?
As of June 4, Fast X stands at $603.3 million worldwide, with $128.5 million from the US and $474.8 million from overseas territories led by China ($125 million), Mexico ($33.3 million) and Brazil ($21.4 million).
Let's start with the US box-office performance. Fast X hasn't really managed to rebound from its soft opening and, at this stage, it's unclear if it will even match Fast & Furious 9's $173 million result. (At the end of its third weekend, F9 was at $141.9 million.)
In the US, the Fast series has been on a decline since its Fast & Furious 7 peak of $353 million with the following results: Fast & Furious 8 ($225.8 million), Hobbs & Shaw ($174 million) and Fast & Furious 9 ($173 million).
Fast X will likely continue this downward trend, even if it manages to overtake The Fast and the Furious ($144.5 million) and Fast & Furious ($155 million). But its underperformance in the US is balanced out by the strength of its overseas performance.
Historically, the Fast & Furious series has always performed better outside of the US and that hasn't changed with Fast X. The series is still a big draw in overseas territories and it should end close to Fast & Furious 9's final $719.4 million result, despite its softer performance in the US.
A box-office haul of around $700 million wouldn't be a bad result in normal circumstances. Fast X is already streets ahead of Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and currently stands as the third-biggest movie of the year.
The potential issue is that the new movie had a reported budget of $340 million, which makes its $700 million result less profitable. It's possible that with the now-public return of Dwayne Johnson and Gal Gadot, Fast X could get a boost on home entertainment release, drawing fans back to the series out of curiosity.
But going forward, the Fast & Furious series might need to redefine what counts as a box office success for its movies, adjusting the budgets accordingly.
Before Fast & Furious 7 and Fast & Furious 8 both made more than $1 billion each, the previous record for the series was Fast & Furious 6's $789.3 million haul. The three movies since, including Fast X's projected result, ended up in the $700-$800 million bracket so even though it's not $1 billion, it's a steady result.
Even with its final movie, the series is probably never going to reach the $1.51 billion success of Fast & Furious 7. That movie, as morbid as it sounds, was boosted by the fact it was Paul Walker's final Fast outing, giving the movie a wider interest among cinema audiences, and also helped by the strongest reviews of the series.
Fast & Furious 8 was then driven past $1 billion in large part due to a $392.1 million result in China. However, we're just not seeing those kinds of numbers in China at the moment for Hollywood movies; if anything, Fast X's $127.9 million in China is a decent result based on recent US performances in the market.
It's possible that a final performance around $700 million is the 'new normal' for the Fast Saga, a benchmark that other series would be more than happy to deal with. A smaller budget for both Fast X Part 2 and the Hobbs spin-off movie would do a lot to make that result seem stronger than it does for Fast X.
And when the Fast Saga has now made more than $7 billion worldwide to date, it's hard to be too critical of Fast X doing 'only' $700 million.
Fast X is out now in cinemas.
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