Universal’s Fate of the Furious revved its way to $1 billion in worldwide gross and stayed atop the domestic chart in its third weekend as romantic comedy How To Be a Latin Lover and Indian film Baahubali 2: The Conclusion both managed to come in ahead of the Tom Hanks-Emma Watson tech thriller The Circle at the box office.
Fate of the Furious, the eighth installment in the cars-and-guns franchise and the first since the death of series star Paul Walker last year, pulled in an additional $19.4 million this weekend to stay number one with a domestic total to date of $192.7 million, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The Vin Diesel-Dwayne Johnson-starring action flick becomes the 30th movie ever to cross the $1 billion mark after picking up a staggering $867.6 million overseas to date.
Meanwhile, How to Be a Latin Lover — starring Salma Hayek and Eugenio Derbez — brought in $12 million from just 1,000 screens to set a new record for Lionsgate’s Hispanic label Pantelion and place second for the weekend. The film — which stars Derbez as a recently-divorced playboy forced to move in with his estranged sister (Hayek) — was released in both English and Spanish, and 89 percent of its opening-weekend audience was Hispanic, according to Deadline. Kristen Bell, Rob Lowe, and Michael Cera co-star.
Latin Lover is expected to expand into more theaters next weekend, when it will serve as some of the only counter-programming to Marvel’s superhero juggernaut Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, which is currently tracking to open at a monstrous $150 million.
In third place for the weekend was the Indian film Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, taking $10.1 million from just 450 theaters to make it the best opening ever for an Indian film in the United States. In its native India, the film reportedly grossed between $50-60 million through its first weekend, which would make it the highest-grossing debut in its home country, too.
EuropaCorp/STX Entertainment’s The Circle, starring Tom Hanks and Emma Watson, was the big loser this weekend, taking in an estimated $9.3 million to come in fourth place and marking one of the worst openings of Hanks’ career.
The Circle — directed by James Ponsoldt and based on the novel by Dave Eggers — stars Watson as a young employee of a Google-like tech company run by Hanks’ character, which she soon discovers is up to no good. As Deadline reported, the $18 million film scored a premiere this week at the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival, but that may have done more harm than good, as it currently sits at just 18% on ratings aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Even worse, The Circle earned a D+ CinemaScore, a rare feat and an especially disappointing result for two-time Oscar-winning Hanks. John Boyega, Patton Oswalt and the late Bill Paxton also star.
Rounding out this weekend’s top five was 20th Century Fox/DreamWorks Animation’s The Boss Baby, which earned an estimated $9 million to bring its domestic total to $148.5 million in its fifth week of release.
Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum
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