The IMAX edition of “Furious 7” raced to all-time global and domestic April opening weekend records for the giant-screen format with $20.8 mil. on 540 screens worldwide and $13.3 mil. on 365 IMAX screens in North America, the company announced today.
Just imagine how additional 3D premium prices could have boosted those totals even more. “Furious 7” fills every inch of the huge IMAX screen, and looked and sounded even more vivid than usual in the debut of IMAX’s new laser projection system, but overseas audiences also enjoyed the spectacular car chases and action scenes in 3D.
Showings in just 175 IMAX theaters overseas contributed $7.5 mil. to the record $245 mil. in all theaters and the staggering $392 mil. overall, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com. And that doesn’t even include China, Russia and Japan, where the movie opens this weekend, and a combined additional 800 movie IMAX theaters still to come, a record number of theaters for an IMAX release. The movie set an April opening weekend record overall with $147 mil., ninth biggest opening weekend in any month in history.
“With this record-setting launch for Furious 7 in IMAX, it’s hard to imagine a stronger start to the summer 2015 blockbuster season,” said Greg Foster, Senior Executive Vice President, IMAX Corp. and CEO of IMAX Entertainment. “We’d like to congratulate our partners at Universal Pictures, as well as director James Wan and producers Neal Moritz and Vin Diesel, for creating a highly-charged cinematic event that was perfectly suited to the IMAX format.”
— By Scott Hettrick