The Fate Of The Furious... And The Apple Car

The Furious Franchise gets into even Higher Gear

Have you seen the... actually, we’re probably asking far too late. We were about to ask whether you had seen The Fate of the Furious, the latest theatrical installment in the Fast and the Furious franchise; however, judging from the box-office takings so far, you probably saw it a while ago. The film has already clocked a world record opening, capturing an estimated $532.5 million during its first weekend. With familiar favorites Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson and others returning and Charlize Theron joining the fold, the movie easily excites - and also reminds us of that Apple Car...

A FAST HISTORY OF A FURIOUS FRANCHISE

The series’ first film, simply titled The Fast and the Furious, sped into theaters with the ferocity of one of its illegally-driven cars way back in 2001. However, at the time, few critics likely believed that there was a major, consistently blockbusting franchise being tinkered with in distributor Universal Pictures’ garage. To date, reviews gathered by Metacritic awarded the film a score, on average, of a little under 60%. Furthermore, it wasn’t until the fifth film that the 60% mark was finally surpassed.

However, for the most part, the critical responses to the Fast and the Furious movies have been foreshadowing their financial successes. As made clear in graphs published by The Telegraph, the second, third and fourth movies saw a lull in both critical acclaim and box-office hauls. Those disappointing years ended with Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6 and Furious 7, which have all passed both $200m in the United States box-office and 60% in Metacritic reviewers’ ratings.