The Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Dwayne Johnson, and of course the late Paul Walker-led film burned serious rubber on its first Friday at the box office, earning $67.3 million during its first 24 hours of release, according to Forbes. This not only puts the film on track to easily speed past its predecessor, “Fast and Furious 6″ ($97 million), it also opens the film up for what could be a $168 million opening weekend, which would only put the film behind “The Avengers,” “Iron Man 3″ and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.”
The craziest part is, when it comes to Friday numbers only — that is, when you subtract the amount of money made by Thursday night’s midnight showings — “Furious 7″ actually beats the final “Harry Potter” movie, which is why Forbes is predicting the bold, $168 million figure.
However, even if the film doesn’t reach those astronomical heights — Variety predicted a more modest $140 million as of Friday, April 3 — it would still be one of the highest openings in cinema history, and it will easily break “American Sniper”‘s 2015 record as the number one opening weekend of 2015, with $89,269,066.
How’s that for the power of sticking with family, Dom Toretto?