April 11--"Furious 7" is still speeding at the box office.
Retaining more Week 2 power than expected, Universal's latest installment in the street-racing saga with Vin Diesel and Jason Statham held on to the top spot for the second straight week with an estimated $18.8 million across 4,022 screens on Friday. It's expected to blow past the $250-million cumulative mark domestically by the end of the weekend.
Universal already says "Furious 7" has been the quickest of any of its movies to cross the $200-million threshold. That should help pay for the reported 230 vehicles that were demolished making the film.
"Furious 7" is the first film released in the "Fast Furious" franchise since the death of star Paul Walker, who was killed in a crash halfway through production. If projections hold, the movie will end up the most popular "Furious" by far, beating 2013's "Fast Furious 6," which topped out at $238 million domestically.
With "Furious 7" burning on all cylinders, little juice was left for other releases on a post-spring-break weekend.
"The Longest Ride," the 10th screen adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks romance novel, opened at No. 3, with a $5.5-million Friday and a respectable $1,634 per-screen average. 20th Century Fox's "Ride" may end up cruising past last year's "The Best of Me," which with a $35-million cumulative gross was the worst-performing of the Sparks adaptations. But it's unlikely to get near "The Notebook," "Dear John" or "Message in a Bottle," Sparks' biggest movie hits, each of which kept tugging heartstrings well past $100 million.
The No. 2 spot went to Fox's "Home," an animated extraterrestrial fantasy that has the bulk of the family-film market to itself now that Disney's live-action "Cinderella" is fading after a month of release. "Home" drew a $5.6-million Friday and entered its third week with $116 million in total. "Cinderella" had to settle for the fifth spot, with a $2.3-million start to the weekend, but its cumulative gross has now risen past $175 million.
At No. 4 with $2.6 million Friday was "Get Hard," the buddy comedy with Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart, which is a bit soft at the box office thanks to negative reviews and word of mouth (moviegoers polled by CinemaScore gave the movie a B). "Get Hard" has grossed a cumulative $65 million so far.
