Hobbs and Shaw: How’s the Fast and Furious Spin-Off doing at the Box Office?

Hobbs and Shaw was launched amidst much fanfare. But, how exactly is the Fast and Furious spin-off movie performing at the global box-office?

It isn’t great news for Universal Pictures who green-lit the Dwayne Johnson-Jason Statham-Idris Elba vehicle – Hobbs and Shaw. The movie hasn’t set the box office on fire in its first weekend. Now, before you grab the keys of the Charger to run us down, hear us out. The spin-off is eventually going to be profitable for the studio. But, it will not end up being as commercially successful as the studio had hoped.

Despite the star value associated with the movie – the director of Atomic Blonde and Deadpool 2, one of the biggest action stars of this decade and the branding of the Fast and Furious franchise – Hobbs and Shaw had an average $60 million domestic opening weekend. That’s the lowest opening in the franchise since its revival in 2009.

Spin-offs seldom do better than the main saga movies. But, Universal was betting big on this one and it’s evident from the $200 million production budget and the expensive global marketing campaign which is still running. The bigger budget means that Hobbs and Shaw must make around $600 million to break even. The number looks achievable though as the 2.4X multiplier usually associated with Fast and Furious films will take the domestic figure close to the $140 million mark. Again, not a great number for domestic box office collections.

The good news is that the film debuted at #1 in 52 of the markets it opened in the past weekend. Definitely a good sign on how the movie will fare in the international scene and China will obviously drive in a strong sum, given how popular these movies are in that market. To put things in perspective, The Fast of the Furious made $392 million in China in 2017 – $166 million more than what that movie had collected in the domestic box office.

We haven’t watched Hobbs and Shaw yet. But the reviews and word-of-mouth have been highly positive. Moviegoers enjoyed the OTT action set pieces, the banter between the charismatic leads and of course, Idris Elba’s performance as the “Black Superman” has found universal acclaim.

Hope it makes enough money to grant us a sequel.

Source: Box Office Mojo