Following its smashing success during the first week, Fast & Furious 5 now needed a stable box office run to contend for the North American annual box office crown. The North American summer schedule is crowded each year, with May being particularly jam-packed. Every weekend in May typically sees the release of a blockbuster, and sometimes two or even three films with budgets over $100 million vie for the spotlight.
Strictly speaking, July marks the tail end of the summer box office season, and after the Independence Day holiday, new blockbuster releases usually drop off significantly.
However, this year did indeed live up to media claims of being the most crowded summer season in history.
In its second week, Fast & Furious 5 faced competition from a new release with a production and marketing scale no less than its own. Cowboys & Aliens, produced and distributed by Universal Pictures, directed by Iron Man's Jon Favreau, and starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, and Olivia Wilde, hit theaters.
With a budget of $163 million, this film surprised everyone by blending two seemingly incompatible elements—Western cowboys and aliens—into one story. Based on a 2006 comic by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, it told the tale of an alien spaceship disrupting a conflict between an Indigenous tribe and a group of cowboys.
While the comic wasn't particularly successful, the film release only confirmed that even a star-studded cast and a capable director like Favreau couldn't save such an awkward premise.
Over its first weekend, this new film grossed only $31.05 million.
Such a weak performance posed no threat to Fast & Furious 5, which maintained a relatively stable performance. Although its second-weekend box office fell nearly 55% from its debut weekend, it still brought in $67.8 million, easily retaining the top spot at the North American box office.
Cowboys & Aliens was on track to join Green Lantern as one of the biggest flops of the summer.
In contrast, Fast & Furious 5 had become a luckiest of the lucky. With the $67.8 million it earned over the weekend, plus weekday earnings, its North American box office surpassed $250 million in just ten days, reaching $252.4 million.
Overseas, the film's momentum had slowed slightly but was still strong. In the past week alone, it brought in nearly $100 million from additional releases in about a dozen new countries and regions.
Thanks to its earlier release abroad, Fast & Furious 5 was close to reaching $500 million in overseas box office.
The latest global total Matthew received was an impressive $741.28 million.
With this trajectory, the film was on track to reach the $1 billion mark.
Matthew wasn't just thrilled by the box office figures; he was equally excited about merchandise sales. A batch of family-themed commemorative T-shirts he ordered for the Asia-Pacific market was selling like hotcakes in North America.
These shirts, featuring all the members of the racing family, seemed to resonate with the themes of friendship and family, offering fans a boost of positive energy. Since they hit theaters and stores before the film's release, they had already garnered attention. Despite a price tag of $99, they were selling well.
Due to complexities in overseas data collection, Matthew hadn't received international figures yet, but in North America alone, these shirts had already brought in close to $20 million.
Compared to the multimillion viewership typical of popular North American movies, these under-2-million-unit sales figures still had vast untapped potential.
Currently, the average ticket price for Fast & Furious 5 in North America was around $7, as it was only available in 2D and IMAX formats.
With over $250 million in box office earnings, the film's North American viewership had already surpassed 35 million.
As viewership for Fast & Furious 5 continued to grow, Matthew calculated that if even 10% of these viewers bought merchandise, the resulting sales would be astounding. If half the audience decided to buy merchandise, it'd be a dream come true.
While it was unlikely that any film would draw over 100 million viewers like Titanic did in its time, rising prices meant that it wasn't uncommon for films to make hundreds of millions from merchandise alone.
For example, when Spider-Man 1 released its DVD, it sparked a frenzy, selling over $100 million worth of DVDs in its first week in North America alone, nearly matching the movie's first-week box office.
Mainstream Hollywood films aim to make a name at the box office and treat screenings as giant ads, while earning big profits from merchandise.
Many Hollywood blockbusters rely increasingly on merchandise sales to recover costs and turn a profit.
Merchandise builds a connection between movies and audiences. The film industry, with its massive output, seeks to engage fans further, while audiences want to feel closer to their favorite movie characters or become the heroes they see on screen—a proven strategy.
The annual value of merchandise has become nearly incalculable, with film-related merchandise reaching around $227 billion annually, a major pillar of Hollywood's economy.
Take 2010, for example. Hollywood statistics showed that global box office revenue was around $32 billion, while movie-related merchandise sales reached $227 billion.
"How can we make more from merchandise?" That's the central question Hollywood continuously explores, and one Matthew constantly monitored.
Of course, strong box office performance was a prerequisite for merchandise success. Outliers like Cars, which generated $5 billion in merchandise despite a modest box office, were rare.
In mid-July, Warner Bros. released Horrible Bosses, a comedy featuring stars like Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston, and Kevin Spacey.
The R rating limited its audience, but its $28.3 million opening weekend was impressive relative to its $35 million production cost. Still, it couldn't stop Fast & Furious 5 from dominating the box office for another week.
Fast & Furious 5 continued its strong and healthy box office trend, bringing in another $32.2 million over the weekend, pushing its North American total to $311.27 million.
Meanwhile, Cowboys & Aliens, which had been panned by critics and audiences alike, saw its box office drop drastically, earning less than $10 million over the weekend. It was easily overtaken by Transformers 3 and fell out of the top five.
On the Asia-Pacific front, Fast & Furious 5's cumulative box office had reached 1.215 billion yuan.
However, due to the scheduling limitations of the July market, the film wouldn't receive an extension and had only a week left in theaters there.
But Matthew was more than satisfied with these results.
At this time, a news story caught Matthew's attention. After waffling between stepping down and staying on, Michael Bay finally confirmed that Transformers 4 was "his calling."
Just the back-and-forth with Michael Bay had garnered a huge amount of attention—using the same trick again and again.
In the industry, everyone knew to take these big directors' words with a grain of salt, as it was often just a promotional tactic.
There's an old saying on the other side of the Pacific: "A man without credibility cannot stand." But in Hollywood, where directors repeatedly "break their promises" and still thrive, it's clear that saying doesn't hold. The key is who's making the claim.
Take Michael Bay. Ever since Transformers 1, he's repeatedly declared, "I'll never make another Transformers movie."
Yet here he was, ready to begin work on Transformers 4, once again at the helm. In a recent media interview, Bay once again raised a flag, saying, "This really is my last Transformers movie."
Perhaps even Bay himself knew that such claims often end up backfiring. To avoid "raising a flag that leads to doom," he would have to keep going, until the day the franchise's box office declined enough for it to be canceled.
Whether or not others believed it, he surely convinced himself.
The benefit was obvious: it attracted attention and added pressure on the producers to negotiate better terms.
Another example was the increasingly hefty Luc Besson, who, over eight hundred years ago, claimed he would only make ten films in his lifetime.
After completing his ninth film, Besson went on to produce Arthur and the Invisibles, a trilogy, and kept making movies. His list of directorial works now likely exceeds ten films.
The French have probably lost count.
In a sense, the phrase "broken promises lead to success" seemed to apply to Luc Besson.
Another director who claimed he would retire after making ten films was Quentin Tarantino. Rumor had it that Django Unchained was in production, with another film outline already in place as his "eighth" movie.
However, Tarantino's director credits already listed more than ten movies. Of course, if Kill Bill 1 and Kill Bill 2 are counted as one film and joint projects like Grindhouse are excluded, Tarantino's tally technically hasn't surpassed ten.
Matthew had considered using a similar tactic—announcing his "retirement" after making ten more movies when promoting his next film. But the fear of "flagging himself to death" kept the idea in check.
What if the flag actually came true, and he really died after the tenth film?
Hollywood had too many beautiful women. He couldn't let them fall into someone else's arms.
As Fast & Furious 5 continued its box office sweep, Matthew met with Ridley Scott for a discussion.
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