Everything's Fnine in the Fast & Furious franchise. Last Friday the first trailer dropped for the next movie, set to debut in May, and it was every bit the over-the-top insane spectacle that everybody anticipated. Even before it was revealed that fan favorite character Han was returning, it was clear the film was pulling out all the stops to bring the action to another level. And it appears to have worked, because more than three months before release, F9 early ticket sales are already blowing the previous film's numbers away.
Tickets went on sale Friday following the live concert event when the trailer was first revealed, and in the first four days, the ticket window's opening weekend so to speak, F9 outpaced ticket sales of The Fate of the Furious by 50%. That's especially impressive considering F9 doesn't open until the end of May. There's no standard for ticket pre-sales at this point, every movie opens up ticket sales at different times, but the serious fans are apparently jumping at ticket even faster than they did for the last movie.
F9's ticket sales are also four times that of the Fast & Furious spinoff Hobbs & Shaw, at the same point in its pre-sale period, according to Deadline.
The Fate of the Furious was the second highest grossing film in the franchise following its theatrical run, with a global take of $1.2 billion compared to the $1.5 billion of Furious 7. However, domestically, Fate came up short of even Fast & Furious 6, which would seem to indicate that the franchise was on something of a downward trajectory locally. The fact the pre-sale tickets are seeing such an early boost for F9 could indicate a renewed interested in the series following the trailer. Maybe people really were just waiting for justice for Han.
With nearly four moths until the release of F9, we can be sure that we'll be seeing a lot more of the movie, including likely at least one more trailer, which will probably give early ticket sales another significant boost.
When it comes to the summer action movie cinema, it looks like most of the rest of the contenders have made way so that F9 won't have significant competition at the box office. Marvel's Black Widow is set to open May 8 but will likely have largely run its course by May 22. Wonder Woman 1984 will open June 5, giving F9 a couple of weeks to appeal to the core demographic looking for summer action.
And with at least one more Fast & Furious movie already planned, we can be sure that we'll be back here doing this in a couple of years. The question then will be just how Fast 10 compares to whatever success is achieved by F9.
