Fast & Furious 7 has sped to a $500m total at the worldwide box office in under a week and will become the highest-grossing film of 2015 in a matter of days.
But the success comes at a cost: the Wall Street Journal reports that 230 cars were destroyed during James Wan’s shoot in Colorado, Atlanta and Abu Dhabi. The destroyed vehicles included several black Mercedes-Benzes, a Ford Crown Victoria and a Mitsubishi Montero. Around 20 to 30 damaged cars were removed from the shooting site and crushed by Colorado firm Bonnie’s Car Crushers to ensure they would not end up back on the market.
The much-discussed street racing sequel, which features the final performance of the late Paul Walker, will pass the £526.8m haul taken by Fifty Shades of Grey this weekend. With James Wan’s film still due to open in China and Japan, the world’s second and third largest film markets, it is well on course to pass the magic $1bn mark globally and could end up breaking into the all-time top 10. The new episode should easily surpass the $789m made by 2013 instalment Fast and Furious 6, the saga’s previous biggest hitter.
Fast & Furious 7 enjoyed the fourth biggest worldwide launch ever at the weekend, behind the last Harry Potter film ($483.2m), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ($394.4m) and Avengers Assemble ($392.5m). That figure has now been revised upwards to $392.3 and the film is expected to make around another $60m in the US alone this weekend.
Series regular Walker had not completed all his scenes for Fast & Furious 7 when the limited-edition Porsche he was travelling in crashed in Valencia, California, in November 2013. Production was immediately halted, but Walker’s brothers Cody and Caleb ultimately doubled for the 40-year-old actor, with CGI also used to complete the movie. Interest in exactly how the film-makers would overcome shooting difficulties, and in catching Walker’s final performance on the big screen, appears to have significantly helped boost box office figures.
Fast & Furious 7 opens in Russia this weekend and China on Sunday. It is due to debut in Japan on 17 April.
