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There are some movie series that seem like they’ll never die.
Various candidates have been the butt of jokes over the years, with titles like “Rocky 37: Senior Center” and “Jaws 29: False Teeth” showing up as background details in movies and TV shows set in the future. But “Jaws” and “Rambo” both died out at four movies each, and “Rocky” currently stands at six until “Creed” (technically a spin-off) his theaters this November.
The “Fast and the Furious” series will clock in their seventh movie well before that, with “Furious 7” now open in theaters. Even more, they managed to get all seven movies to the big screen in much less time than “Rocky,” with only 14 years between the first and the seventh “Furious” instead of 39.
Also, the “Furious” movies are getting more popular as the series goes on, rather than less. Adjusted for inflation, the first “Fast and the Furious” made $ 211,949,000, making it the third biggest moneymaker in the series (without the adjustment, it drops to fourth). However, both the fifth and sixth entries in the series made more adjusted gross, $ 216,115,000 and $ 236,401,300 respectively, with the sixth movie sitting in the top spot.
The only movie in the series that didn’t make more than $ 100,000,000 after being adjusted for inflation was the third movie in the series, “Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift,” which had none of the original cast members (except for a very brief guest spot by Vin Diesel in the last few minutes).
“Rocky,” on the other hand, hasn’t fared so well. According to boxofficemojo.com, the first “Rocky” was by far the biggest moneymaker for the series (after adjusting for inflation), selling what today would have been $ 456,831,800 in tickets. “Rocky Balboa,” on the other hand, only made $ 87,045,800 adjusted and came in fifth out of six movies. After adjustment, neither the fifth or sixth movies broke $ 100,000,000.
Even more importantly, not even Paul Walker’s death seems to be slowing the “Furious” movies down. They’ve killed off (fictional) characters before and kept the series going, which means that Brian O’Conner’s departure (Walker’s character) in no way stops them from making more movies.
Let’s be honest – it’ll really be “Fast and the Furious 42: Jazzies of Death” that will be on whatever Netflix has become in 2050.
But why? It’s not necessarily the cars – 2014’s “Need for Speed” sputtered and died at the box office with only $ 43,577,636, and 2011’s “Drive” choked even harder with a mere $ 35,060,689. Even if you combine the two together, “Fast & Furious 6” still tripled their total take.
The answer might lie in the movies’ biggest secret – it’s what would happen if you introduced cartoon action sequences (and the requisite physics) into a soap opera. Literally the entire series alternates between explosions, increasingly ridiculous and implausible things you can do with cars, and plots ripped straight out of the nearest daytime soap or telenovela.
If you don’t believe me, there’s currently a character in the series who is the long-lost love of Vin Diesel’s character. She not only supposedly died in a previous movie and has come back through means they’ve never explained adequately, but she’s also got amnesia (see? I told you.)
If there’s one thing the American people love more than explosions and crashing things, it’s the passionate nonsense of soap operas. Which means that we’ll probably keep going to the “Furious” movies as long as people keep making them.
And, to be honest, I’m kind of looking forward to watching an elderly Vin Diesel racing wheelchairs.
Movie Beat: The 'Fast and Furious' movies will outlive us all - Davisclipper
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