After five weeks of success in international markets, Vin Diesel and his car-racing comrades blazed across the finish line this weekend in the United States. The domestic tally for the opening weekend of F9: The Fast Saga was $70 million according to The Hollywood Reporter, a strong number by any measure that ought to put any pandemic-era “will audiences return?” questions to bed.
F9, the tenth feature film in the franchise (in this house, we respect Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw) now boasts over $400 million in receipts worldwide. Universal, which unlike Warner Bros. and Disney, is not offering at-home streaming options, had initially intended to release the movie last April before the coronavirus pandemic pumped the breaks.
Audiences seemed to think the wait was worth it: CinemaScore reported a B+ in their post-screening polls. Critics were a little more muted, with the film currently ranked at 60 percent on RottenTomatoes and 59 on Metacritic.
In his review for V.F., Richard Lawson wrote that the Fast & Furious movies have begun to “feel like a chore,” but praised a particular F9 segment as displaying “a reverence and awe that approaches something like poignance.”
In an interview on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Vin Diesel responded with an enthusiastic “yes!” when asked if he’d ever consider adding a musical entry to the F&F franchise. He’s always wanted to do a musical, he said, noting that he was “this close” to doing a version of Guys and Dolls with Steven Spielberg.
The concept of an all-singing, all-dancing, all-racing iteration of the Dom Toretto story naturally delighted people on social media.
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