State of the Franchise: Fast & Furious
By Jason Barney
June 12, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The racing scenes on the curiously empty streets of Los Angeles were sorta comic bookish. The vehicles were able to make corners as fast as a birds in flight. Perhaps because of the way the tale was told, I was able to grin and accept the action. Tossing aside the absurdities of the plot, and throwing away the reality of “that could never happen,” I accepted the story and took in the film in very much the same way fellow movie goers enjoyed such far flung stories as The Mummy Returns, Swordfish, Jurassic Park III, and Planet of the Apes during the hot months of 2001.
It was a big summer film and a surprising success. Made for $38 million, it opened for more than $40 million. Talk about revved up engines. From the moment it entered the summer box office race, it was a winner. It crossed the finish line with $207 million in box office receipts.
I didn’t like the film enough to return for 2 Fast 2 Furious. I ignored Tokyo Drift in 2006 and kinda chuckled when even fans of the series panned it. I rolled my eyes when the fourth entry came out. It was hard to follow a franchise based on the concept of “Cars Go Fast.”
Then something strange happened. Universal announced plans for a fifth installment. This series had to run out of gas at some point, right? Typically the only franchises that manage five different films are ones involving bad horror or science fiction. Cars? Engines?
I totally ignored Fast Five; I had no interest in watching the tracking estimates. The franchise was going to fail soon. In 2011, I was more interested in taking my son to see Rio then embarrassingly getting caught up in conversations about Vroom, Vroom. Well, Fast Five did enough business that I couldn’t help but notice its success. It….it…. set the record for an opening weekend in April with $89 million. Being in the movie analysis business I HAD to take notice.
How was this happening? A franchise was expanding its base with each new installment, surviving without some of the original leads in each entry, and adding new substantial talent.
Universal announced there would be a sixth installment. What? Their plans were for it to open in 2013….over the Memorial Weekend break. Huh? I was missing something. Memorial Day Weekend is one of the biggest movie weekends of the year. It is up there with July 4th and Christmas as a cash cow for studios.
The release of Fast & Furious 6 meant that I had some movie viewing to do.
As the approach of Memorial Day inched closer, I pushed the rewind button. I viewed and reviewed each of the Fast and Furious movies. The truth is, I don’t know for sure if I will see Fast & Furious 6 on the big screen. However, its mere presence as the undisputed box office champion during Memorial Day weekend means that Fast & Furious 6 and the previous five entries deserve a little more attention than I have given them.
Some people LOVE these movies. Please remember, I am not much of a car fan.
The Fast and the Furious (2001) 7/10
The first movie introduces us to Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker). He is an undercover FBI agent assigned to find out who has been hijacking truck loads of very expensive electronic equipment for sale on the black market. O’Conner has some extreme driving talents that allow him to compete in the world of late night street racing in Los Angeles. Some of the folks who flaunt their souped-up cars and race dangerously are suspected of heisting the electronics. Brian shifts his way into the car underworld and becomes associated with Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), a prominent figure in the car competitions. O’Conner’s loyalties are tested when he falls for Toretto’s sister, (Jordana Brewster) and is exposed to Toretto’s personal life and charisma.
The Fast and the Furious actually is a good film. Walker’s reserved and confident younger brother like portrayal of O’Conner plays well against the tough, life experience delivery of Vin Diesel’s Toretto. There is chemistry between the two and they successfully come across as obsessed with speed, almost like high school students learning about engines for the first time. Director Rob Cohen succeeded masterfully in showing cars that look better than anything we ever played with as kids or have driven as adults. His race scenes are full of quick, jerky camera angles which put the viewer in the vehicles, along for the ride. There is plot weirdness and decisions by the characters that leave you wondering “what the?”, but most of the action is well done. As the film ends, O’Conner’s undercover status is exposed to the disbelieving Toretto.
Audiences embraced it, surprising the box office world with an opening of over $40 million. The film paid for itself in one weekend…and then went on to burn rubber for the next several weeks. When all was said and done, The Fast and the Furious had made $144 million domestic with another $62 million from overseas markets. Universal was happy enough with the outcome that it decided to build on the model…
2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) 5/10
Installment two is not as good as the first one. Paul Walker is back as Brian O’Conner, but the setting has shifted to South Florida. O’Conner is doing fairly well on his own, dominating the high speed illegal race scene in Miami. However, his commanding officers from the previous film track him down and give him the opportunity to atone for his actions at the end of The Fast and the Furious. He must use his driving talents to help them nab drug lord Carter Verone. Along the way he taps the driving skills of former friend Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson). Tensions between competing law enforcement interests surface, and the bad guys attempt to get away.
One of the issues with 2 Fast 2 Furious is that the first film at least stood out. It was new and exciting. The high speed scenes were so well done even non car fans felt their pulse quicken, imagining they were behind the wheel. This installment provides more of the same. There are plenty of cool high fives, long legs, highways and beaches, but for a sequel there are some things missing. Paul Walker is still likable as Brian O’Conner. His relationship with Roman Pearce works….but the absence of Vin Diesel is noticed. Also, the need for the characters to be engaged in high speed driving as part of this plot is a bit of a stretch.
The end result wasn’t as much of a moneymaker as the original, but Universal still made out handsomely on their investment. They put $76 million into the gas tank and were able to drive it far enough for $127 million domestically and another $109 million overseas. Universal perhaps discovered a new engine formula that worked - the foreign gross had nearly doubled.
The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) 3/10
The third entry into the franchise was a substantial deviation from what was established with the first two films. The plot has Sean Boswell (Lucas Black) being sent from his high school in the U.S. to a school in Japan for disciplinary reasons related to....racing. This character has never been introduced before but is the protagonist. While in Tokyo, our Eli Manning look- a-like hero gets involved in the inner tensions of the Japanese Mafia and learns the driving discipline of drifting.
Artistically and stylistically the film isn't bad. The plot development is not awful, but this entry is miles behind the others. The use of roughhousing with vehicles as a method of solving disputes gets a bit stale. Some of the character interactions, like using the teenage romance to move tensions forward, or the having the mafia accept Boswell's presence so easily, really detract from this one.
The disconnect between Tokyo Drift and the earlier versions was noticed by audiences. Universal put $85 million into the project. It only managed $62 million at the domestic box office. It did earn another $95 million overseas. Not quite a franchise killer, it is seen as the worst of the entries. One of its few saving graces is the last 30 seconds or so, but two hours is a long time to wait to learn the reason why the story was even told.
Fast & Furious (2009) 6/10
Three years pass for us, but the film franchise goes back to its roots and plays with the order of things, and successfully gets the engine going again. Paul Walker is back as O’Conner, and Vin Diesel reprises his role as Toretto. As we reunite with the original cast, we learn that Toretto fled to the Dominican Republic and picked up his old habits of car racing and stealing truck shipments. O’Conner is a bit of a veteran in the police force now, investigating the border traffic drug trade. The paths of Toretto and Walker are woven together when Toretto’s girlfriend is murdered in drug related violence.
How many times can the studio go back to the well with the same relative formula and have it work? Well, this is the fourth installment and it relies on the simple premise of cars, chase scenes, and action. As stated earlier, suspending belief and just throwing out the “that could never happen” comments mean a lot toward enjoying these films. Accepting aliens, lasers, and time travel are the basis of so many other franchises, unbelievable car chase scenes are just the bread and butter here.
And it has become the cream of the crop for Universal. With Walker and Vin Diesel back, fans returned in droves. The studio spent $85 million to make Fast and Furious and they were handsomely rewarded. $155 million domestic tally was just the start, as international audiences continued to expand and embrace the exploits of these characters. It managed over $200 million overseas….a staggering $363 million total. Even if you think the series is ridiculous, those numbers are huge.
Fast Five (2011) 5/10
The unlikely fifth entry brings almost all of the major characters from the first movies together. O’Conner is basically on the run with the rest of the Toretto gang, based on his actions at the end of the last film. As they attempt to resettle in Brazil, they decide to put their talents to work for one last job, enough of a play to get established and allow everyone to settle down. Of course, while undertaking the heist, things go crazy. Despite the subpar quality of the rest of the film, the train action sequence near the beginning is amazing.
Fast Five expanded its talent with this venture, bringing in the Rock, and gathering all of the previously unattached characters into a single two and a half our film. It works enough to be entertaining, and grounding the villains of the franchise in South American drug running is okay. The foundation of the franchise, fast cars and racing, has been left way, way behind. The ridiculousness of the bank vault chase scene is action packed but pretty over the top.
It feels as though bringing everyone together creates a fifth wheel; an unneeded element. Audiences just didn’t care, though. Fast Five was heartedly embraced by movie goers. It set the record for an April opening weekend with a stunning $89 million debut and raced through American theaters to the tune of $209 million. The real dough came from the overseas markets, where it earned $416 million. Despite lack of quality, the franchise was alive and well.
Fast & Furious 6 (2013)
I have not seen it yet, but you probably have. And if you have not, you have heard about its box office success.
It opened over Memorial Day weekend and helped power the box office to a record breaking week of $317 million. Of that total take, Brian O’Conner, the Rock, and Toretto drove the way with $120 million. The global dollars that are now pouring into this franchise are absolutely nuts, with foreign receipts already outpacing the domestic ones. A curious mark as to the success of the franchise is that the global cume for Fast & Furious 6 equaled the box office output of the United States during Memorial Day Weekend. That is a stunning accomplishment for this film, and it means the Fast & Furious series is alive and well.
We won’t have to wait long for the next installment with these characters.
It has already been announced for next summer.