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Kim Hollis: I just don't understand this opening at all. Not even a little. The franchise seemed tired after the second film, and that belief seemed to be proven out by the performance of the third movie, Tokyo Drift. I always thought the fourth movie felt like a too little, too late cash grab on the parts of Paul Walker and Vin Diesel, and I guess it can still be considered that. They just grabbed a whole lot more cash than I ever imagined was possible - $72 million in opening weekend alone is just slightly less than I would have predicted for the entire theatrical run.

Vin Diesel needed F&F as much as it needed him, perhaps

Kim Hollis: How important a factor in the fourth movie's opening weekend success was Vin Diesel's acrimonious departure from the franchise after the first film? Also, do you think the second film would have seen similar results if Diesel had participated?

David Mumpower: As I move the pieces around in my head, what becomes clear is that we have effectively pushed the fourth film into the second film's slot. Stay with me on this. The first movie in the franchise was a blockbuster and it was also a good movie, something that most people have forgotten by now. The standoff between Paul Walker and Vin Diesel's characters went unresolved when Diesel chose to do other projects, most notably xXx and the Pitch Black sequel, instead. The second film opened so well due to the premise we have been espousing on BOP for a while now, the idea that a film's quality strongly impacts its sequel's opening weekend performance. A level of trust is built with the audience in this regard.

2 Fast 2 Furious, one of the worst films of the 2000s, had the same impact on Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Its lack of quality was negative reinforcement for consumers about spending money on the third film in the series. That's a bit unfortunate, because it was a better film and viewers also missed out on a surprise appearance by Diesel at the end. Had he been in the second film, this weekend's results support the notion that we would have seen an X-Men to X2: X-Men United type of opening weekend spike. Instead, there was a sequel with a spectacular opening weekend followed by what was at the time historically terrible legs. It was so disliked that consumers gave the third production no chance. With the return of the most engaging character from the first film, however, we finally got that delayed sequel explosion that had been on hold for two films. I'm having trouble coming up with another such example of this behavior in the box office annals.





Tim Briody: As David said, it's like the second and third films never happened. Because Vin Diesel was in it, Fast & Furious was treated by audiences as the proper sequel to The Fast and the Furious, which thanks to the titles of the films, becomes one of the stupidest things I've ever typed.

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