33% of Fast and Furious 6 Box-office Revenue Contributed to Latino Movie-goers
By Elia Esparza
If the predictions, fueled by powerful social media fan campaigns, are to be believed, the highly anticipated premiere of Universal’s Furious 7 will easily defeat Fifty Shades of Grey, which blew the competition with their 3-day Valentine’s Day box-office opening at $85.17M and 4-days $93M. Furious 7 predictors give it a $115M opening—a figure that will crown the film the largest April opener ever! It is opening up on Easter weekend after all and holiday openings tend to do very well for movie premieres.
And it had better be if Universal is to recoup the $250 million to make this seventh chapter of its franchise. The cost of finishing Furious 7 was originally budgeted at $200 million, but after Walker’s tragic accident, the buzz is that the estimated $50 million paid out by the film’s insurance company, Fireman’s Fund, was the amount added in order to finish the film using the magic of CGI (computer-generated face replacement).
No doubt the untimely death of one of its stars, Paul Walker, 40, in 2013, almost had Universal scrapping the entire production. Furious 7 was only about halfway done, but the fan pressure went into overdrive on social media and Universal decided it had to move forward. Using the magic of Peter Jackson’s Weta to create the digital Paul, CGI completed the actor’s unfinished scenes—thus allowing for Brian O’Conner’s journey to be finished.
Utilizing Walker’s younger brothers 25-year old Cody and 36-year old Caleb, both helped fill in for their brother physical—Caleb for his body size and mannerisms and Cody for the eyes. Jackson tackled the effects work using three cameras (in addition to the main-unit cameras) to capture Walker’s stand-ins for face replacement.
Latino/Hispanic Movie-Goers According to exit polling from Universal, the U.S. audience for the 2013 opening weekend of Furious 6 was 33% Hispanic, 22% African-American and 13% Asian-American. Caucasians made up only 29% of viewers, meaning twice as many tickets were sold to non-white moviegoers.
And if the box-office predictions for Furious 7 are correct then it will be because of the 33% Hispanic/Latino following this film franchise has. Also, despite Michelle Rodriguez’s recent dumb and racist statement: “Instead of trying to turn a White character into a black character of Latino character, I think that people should stop being lazy.” The very fact that it is the Latino audiences who are driving the box-office to a franchise that made her a very rich woman, has not set well with Latino social media blogosphere. Check out this article about Rodriguez’s famous “stuck-her-foot-in-her-mouth” moment.
Will Brian O’Conner Derail Christian Grey? Maybe. Perhaps the sequels to Fifty Shades of Grey should consider adding a more diverse cast. In addition, the F&F familia has a larger following on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook than any other film franchise.
Currently the video counts 1.3M views and in regards to advance ticket sales, Furious 7 is outselling Fast & Furious 6 at the same point in its sales cycle on Fandango.
To date, the Fast & Furious franchise has made $2.4B for Universal worldwide through previous chapter Fast & Furious 6, which opened over the 2013 Memorial Day frame, accumulating $238.7M stateside and $788.7M around the globe.
So, Michelle Rodriguez, just to be clear, Latinos are not being lazy and they have for years written and created amazing superheroes. They just haven’t been as fortunate as you to have been to be cast in a movie back in 2001 that no one could have predicted it would become the Hollywood-changing blockbuster franchise that it is today. You are one lucky Latina who should count her blessings– and thank her Latino fan base who help make it happen!
Furious 7 premieres April 3rd, nationwide. Director: James Wan Writers: Chris Morgan, Gary Scott Thompson Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Stratham, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Lucas Black, Kurt Russell, Nathalie Emmanuel, Elsa Pataky, Gal Gadot, John Brotherton, Luke Evans
Twitter: @Eliawriter
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