The high-octane thriller Furious 7 maintained speed in its second week, racing away with $60.6 million (Dh222.5 million) at North American cinemas and bringing its box-office total to a robust $252.5 million, according to studio estimates on Sunday.
Universal’s Furious 7 more than lapped the competition. The only new wide release of the weekend, the rodeo romance The Longest Ride, opened with $13.5 million.
That was good enough for third place for the Fox release, which stars Clint Eastwood’s son, Scott Eastwood. In second was the DreamWorks animated alien adventure Home, which pulled in $19 million in its third week of release.
But Furious 7 continued to dominate the marketplace, dropping only 59 per cent from its remarkable $147.2 million debut last weekend. Globally, it has already crossed $800 million in its first two weeks of release, according to Universal.
The weekend international total — an eye-popping $195 million — was boosted by the film premiering in China on Sunday, where it earned an estimated $68.6 million in just one day.
Over 10 days, Furious 7, which prominently features a tribute to the late actor Paul Walker, has already out-grossed all previous instalments of the 14-year-old franchise.
At its current pace, Furious 7 will likely become the highest grossing film in Universal’s history. The studio’s Jurassic Park, from 1993, holds Universal’s mark with $1.02 billion worldwide.
It’s a summer blockbuster-sized result for Furious 7, but by opening in April, it has little competition in its way. On a much smaller scale, the critically acclaimed sci-fi film Ex Machina drew the year’s largest cinema average of $62,489 in four cinemas.
