Fate Of The Furious Crushed The Competition At The Weekend Box Office

After two straight weeks at the top of the box office, The Boss Baby was finally forced to step down when The Fate of the Furious came roaring into theaters.

The eighth film in the highly popular franchise, Fate grossed $100.2 million domestically and $432.3 million internationally. Add that up, and you get a staggering total of $532.5 million. That's over half a billion dollars in one weekend.

In fact, Fate of the Furious did so well that it crushed the international opening record held by Jurassic World ($316.7 million), and it even beat the worldwide opening record previously held by Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($529 million). True, as Gitesh Pandya points out at Rotten Tomatoes, the odds were stacked in Fate's favor as The Force Awakens didn't open in China until a month after its debut. But hey, that's not Fate's fault, and the Vin Diesel flick picked up $190 million in the People's Republic, which means Fate of the Furious now holds the biggest opening weekend for any film in Chinese history. The previous record was held by Furious 7.

So why did the Universal film do so well at the box office? Well, the domestic audience was 59% non-white, likely thanks to the diversity of the cast. Plus, as Paul Dergarabedian of comScore put it (via Variety), "This is a truly global franchise. These movies translate perfectly into any culture. Fast cars, outrageous stunts—that's the international language for something everybody loves."

Indeed, the outpouring of love has been phenomenal, and thanks to Fate's performance over the weekend, The Fast and the Furious series earned $4.4 billion worldwide, making it the eighth most profitable franchise in history. So yeah, keep an eye out for part nine in 2019 and part ten in 2021.

As for The Boss Baby, the Alec Baldwin film took second place over the weekend, dropping about 41% and earning around $15.5 million. So far, the DreamWorks comedy has earned $287.4 million across the globe, which is nothing to sneeze at. Of course, that pales in comparison to Beauty and the Beast. The Disney behemoth raked in $13.6 million on the home front, giving it a domestic total of $454.7 million. That means Beauty is the 12th highest-grossing film of all time, domestically speaking, beating out the likes of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Shrek 2, and The Dark Knight Rises.

Things get even more impressive when you pull back and look at this movie on a global scale. During the weekend, the film earned $22 million internationally. And earlier last week, Beauty and the Beast became the 29th film to win membership in the prestigious billion-dollar club. In fact, Disney is saying it's the highest-grossing musical of all time, and we certainly aren't going to argue. This is also a pretty fantastic moment for Emma Watson. As Vanity Fair points out, with Beauty and the Beast and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, the actress now has two billion-dollar films in her resume.

In fourth place, Sony's Smurfs: The Lost Village isn't doing too hot, falling 51% with just $6.5 million. Tallying everything up, that's a domestic total of $24.7 million. Worldwide, things aren't looking much better, with a total of $95 million. Contrast that with the film's $60 million production budget (never mind marketing) and...well, let's just leave it at that.

Moving on down the list, the old men-turned-bank robbers flick, Going in Style, made off with $6.4 million in its second weekend, out-performing Fox Searchlight's Gifted. The Chris Evans drama expanded across the country, but it only managed to earn about $3 million. It probably makes 84-year-old Michael Caine feel pretty good to know that he just beat up Captain America, even if it was only at the box office. But once again, the real champion is Jordan Peele's Get Out. The horror flick dropped a slight 29% with around $2.9 million. And according to Box Office Mojo, for the seventh straight week since its February release, Get Out has had the "smallest drop within the top ten."

Perhaps even more impressive, Get Out has scared up a grand total of $167.5 million, and that means Jordan Peele is now the highest-grossing black director at the domestic box office, beating F. Gary Gray for Straight Outta Compton. Of course, Peele probably won't hold that title for very long as The Fate of the Furious was directed by none other than, you guessed it, F. Gary Gray. Fingers crossed that Peele can keep this awesome box office rivalry going with his next film, whatever that might be.

At number eight, Power Rangers slipped 54% for $2.9 million, and The Case for Christ did pretty well over the Easter weekend, using its divine powers to whip up $2.7 million. At number ten, Kong: Skull Island is still proudly beating its chest, bringing in $2.7 million at home, for a global total of $552.3 million. Of course, a lot of that cash came from China, where the big monkey has picked up an impressive cume of $167.1 million. But outside the top ten, Logan is still fighting for mutant rights, earning $1.9 million, bringing its worldwide total to approximately $600 million. As Forbes points out, that makes the X-Men flick the fourth highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time, globally. It's just $13 million away from passing up Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, but as Logan came out over a month ago, the Wolverine might need some of that green serum if he wants to beat out Jesus.

In addition to The Fate of the Furious, a few other films debuted over the weekend, including The Lost City of Z. Released by Bleecker Street and Amazon Studios, the James Gray film earned $112,633 from four theaters, but things were far, far worse for Open Road's Spark: A Space Tail. The animated sci-fi film debuted in 365 theaters but only managed to earn $100,000 which, as The Hollywood Reporter put it, is pretty "miserable." So it's probably safe to say that Spark won't pose much of a threat to Fate of the Furious in the upcoming weeks. But while we're waiting to see Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, and Michelle Rodriguez smash even more records in the near future, be sure to check out why Little Nobody looks so familiar.