F9 Shatters Pandemic Box Office Records With An Excellent Opening Weekend

One thing that should be pointed out with this performance is that right now the film is a big screen exclusive – something that is a bit rare right now in distribution. While films like the aforementioned Godzilla vs. Kong and Simon McQuoid’s Mortal Kombat both came out day-and-date in theaters and on HBO Max, the only way to see F9 in North America right now is to go buy a ticket, so the $70 million it has made represents all of the interest that existed to see the film this weekend. That information doesn’t mean all that much by itself at present, but it does set an interesting new high water mark for that type of release, and it will make a good source of comparison going forward. For example, if Cate Shortland’s Black Widow comes out in a few weeks and doesn’t do as well as F9, we will have to contemplate the influence of it being made available via Premiere Access on Disney+ and consider how much of the theatrical audience was lost to streaming.