MAY 24-26 BOX OFFICE REPORT - A FAST & FURIOUS START

Riding hard on the phenomenal success of Fast Five, the sixth entry in the Fast & Furious franchise opened last weekend to a brilliant $97.4 million, the highest opening of the franchise to date - heck, it's over a third higher than The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift's entire gross back in 2006. In so doing, Fast & Furious 6 has produced the biggest non-3D opening of the year so far, and pummelled The Hangover: Part III into second place; it opened with just $41.7 million, which is the lowest of that franchise, and even lower when one considers ticket price inflation. Hangover 3 opened on Thursday, where its takings were less than on any day Friday through Sunday. And, in fouth, animated film Epic took $33.5 million. That's a fair start for the Blue Sky Animation product, which, considering the lack of family-orientated competition in weeks to come, may be enough to raise Epic's domestic gross to its budget of $100 million.

Three other films opened in limited release to rather different ends. Weakest of the bunch was Alex Gibney's documentary We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks (42), which, despite a broadly-known subject, could only muster $27,689. Faring better was Israeli drama Fill the Void (37), whose popularity at last year's Venice Film Festival translated into an impressive $59,164 at the domestic box office last weekend. Best of all, though, was the final installment in a trilogy, and it wasn't The Hangover Part III. No, it was Before Midnight (18), opening in just five theatres and taking in $246,914. Up top, Star Trek Into Darkness suffered a moderate drop down to third, but still above opener Epic, Mud continued its strong run with a drop of just 13.1% weekend-on-weekend, Frances Ha and Love Is All You Need shot up into the top 20 with significant expansions each, while Pain and Gain, Peeples and The Big Wedding dropped eight, seven and nine places respectively.

The Winner / Highest Opener: Fast & Furious 6 ($97,375,245)

Top Per-Theatre Average: Before Midnight ($49,383)

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