Fast & Furious, the 4^th film in the franchise, smoked the competition this weekend, easily taking the top spot at the box office. This weekend’s other new release, Adventureland, had a mild opening landing in 6^th place, while Monsters vs. Aliens, continued to play very well to families looking for some fun.

Fast & Furious raced its way to a terrific $72.5M opening, shattering industry expectations and April records along the way. High end predictions for the racing sequel were about $55M (I predicted $53M), so $72.5M was quite the shock to the industry. Fast & Furious destroyed the previous April record holder, Anger Management, which grossed $42.2M back in 2003. 

Fast & Furious also had the best opening of any in the franchise, tripling the opening take of the third entry in the series, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, which opened to $23.9M in 2006. Of course, Tokyo Drift was the only film in the series that featured a completely new cast and setting, thus making it less appealing to fans.   With the original cast, largely absent from the 2^nd and 3^rd movies, the 4^th entry played more like a sequel to the original and performed like one as well. The success of Fast & Furious can also be contributed to the brilliant decision by Universal to release the movie in April, versus the more competitive summer season. Initially it was scheduled to be released in June, but moving the date up to spring really seems to have paid off. Fast & Furious should see a considerable drop off next weekend due to the front loaded nature of its fan base, but it still might have enough gas to stay at #1 next weekend, something that would never happen during the summer, with a new event movie scheduled every week.

Coming of age comedy, Adventureland got off to a so-so start, grossing $6M and landing in 6^th place, very close to my $7M forecast. Not a terrible start considering the movie opened in only about 1800 theatres. Despite great reviews, Adventureland failed to lure in an audience as most teenagers were distracted by race cars and monsters battling aliens. There is the chance that the comedy will become a sleeper hit, but with competition from I Love You, Man still strong and Seth Rogen’s Observe and Report opening next weekend, the chances of Adventureland becoming a modest box office hit are slim at best. It will, however, go on to have a nice life on DVD and cable.

Among holdovers, Monsters vs. Aliens continued to rake in the bucks, collecting another $33.5M (I said $34.4M), bringing its overall gross to $105M after only 10 days in theatres. Look for Monsters vs. Aliens to end up with about $175M by the end of its run. The Haunting in Connecticut dropped 59% in its second weekend (typical for a horror movie) just as I thought, to collect another $9.5M. The fright flick now stands at an overall take of $37.2M and should reach about $55M. To see how the rest of my predictions fared, check out the chart below.