Furious 7' Stays Ahead of the Pack

Associated Press 

The high-octane thriller "Furious 7" maintained speed in its second week, racing away with $60.6 million at North American theaters and bringing its box-office total to a robust $252.5 million, according to studio estimates on Sunday.

Comcast Corp.'s Universal Pictures' "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 Twentieth Century Fox release, which stars Clint Eastwood's son, Scott Eastwood. In second was the DreamWorks Animation SKG 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% from its $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's international total--$195 million--was boosted by the film premiering in China on Sunday, where it earned 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 installments of the 14-year-old franchise.

At its current pace, "Furious 7" could become the highest grossing film in Universal's history. The studio's "Jurassic Park," from 1993, holds Universal's mark with $1.02 billion world-wide, or about $1.7 billion adjusted for inflation.

It's a summer blockbuster-size 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 theater average of $62,489 in four theaters.

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