The first Fast & Furious spinoff Hobbs & Shaw is set to land this week to a relatively low $60 million domestic debut and is predicted to pull $195 million—or possibly more—worldwide.
Previous installments have seen considerably larger openings. Deadline reports that the film isn’t expected to take off immediately like the franchise’s last chapter, 2017’s The Fate of the Furious, which saw a record-obliterating $532 million worldwide debut—$98.8M of which came from the U.S.—and became the second-highest-grossing entry to date with $1.2 billion.
Still, Hobbs & Shaw is unlike other spinoffs: there aren’t too many films that bring back two vital characters—Dwayne Jonhson’s Luke Hobbs and Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw—in a standalone story. According to Variety, if estimates hold up, H&S could thwart the sequel slump, and positive word-of-mouth could boost the predicted revenue. This summer has seen tepid openings and total earnings for follow-ups and reboots like Men in Black International, Shaft, Child’s Play, Dark Phoenix, and Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
Overall, the Fast & Furious series has collected almost $5 billion worldwide across eight films. Furious 7 saw the biggest American debut with $147 million in 2015, and went on to become the highest-grossing installment with $1.5 billion globally. The previous film, 2013’s Fast & Furious 6 grossed $788.7 million internationally. The franchise debuted in 2001 to $40M in the U.S. and a $207.3M total gross.
Hobbs & Shaw premieres Aug. 2 and features Johnson and Statham’s characters joining forces to take down a genetically enhanced anarchist played by Idris Elba. The cast also includes Helen Mirren and Vanessa Kirby.
