The Fast and the Furious franchise is taking a break from its main narrative this year to instead deliver its first spinoff: Hobbs and Shaw, featuring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham reprising their respective roles. Hobbs and Shaw is one of the last blockbusters to arrive this summer season, so what does this mean for its box office performance? Well, right now it’s estimated that the spinoff will come close to the $200 million mark across the globe this weekend.
That would be a pretty impressive debut, but let’s break down the numbers a bit. Domestically, tracking reported by THR places Hobbs and Shaw at pulling in between $60-65 million, though some analysts think it could surpass $70 million. That’s a decent opening either way (though down from earlier estimates), but its worldwide where Hobbs and Shaw will shine even brighter.
Rather than delay Hobbs and Shaw’s release overseas, Universal Pictures opted to release it in most other countries this weekend as well, thus adding somewhere between $120-130 million to its worldwide opening, assuming it does indeed hit close to $200 million territory. China is one of the few territories getting a later release, opening there on August 23, but since the Fast and the Furious franchise has done incredibly well in China, Universal hardly needs to worry about Hobbs and Shaw underperforming in that country.
In any case, Hobbs and Shaw is primed to take the #1 spot at the box office this weekend, pushing The Lion King to #2 and putting Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in third place. That said, The Lion King’s already cemented itself as a commercial powerhouse by passing $1 billion. As for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, while it had the best opening of any of Quentin Tarantino’s films with $40.4 million, it’ll apparently need to make an estimated $400 million to break even.
One thing is certainly clear: Hobbs and Shaw is the biggest opening movie this weekend. The only other competition are The Nightingale and A Score to Settle, and while both of those could end up being critical triumphs, neither will come close to pulling in the amount of money Hobbs and Shaw does.
Over its nearly two decade-long life, the Fast and the Furious franchise has collected over $5 billion, making it Universal’s highest grossing franchise. Two of the movies, Furious 7 and The Fate of the Furious, have both made over $1 billion. It’ll be interesting to see if Hobbs and Shaw ends up being the third movie in the series to join the billion dollar club.
Hobbs and Shaw sees Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw joining forces again to stop Idris Elba’s Brixton Lore, a genetically-enhanced rogue MI6 agent, from releasing a virus onto the world. The cast also includes Vanessa Kirby, Eiza González, Roman Reigns and Helen Mirren. Deadpool 2’s David Leitch directed the spinoff and longtime Fast and the Furious franchise writer Chris Morgan co-penned the script with Drew Pearce.
Check out Hobbs and Shaw for yourself this weekend, and be sure to read CinemaBlend’s review of the movie. Don’t forget to also look through our 2019 release schedule to find out what other movies are opening later in the year.
