The Fast & Furious movies have made a lot of money, pulling in almost $4 billion since the first film came out in 2001. The chart below shows the money made by every Fast & Furious movie. The biggest by far is 2015’s Furious 7, which made a staggering $1.5 billion, an unprecedented sum for a movie about fast cars and thieves. The movie beat Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron by $100 million and Iron Man 3 by $300 million. It very nearly edged out even Avengers, losing the box office battle with that movie by just over $2 million. Other films that beat it are the #1 grossing film of all time, Avatar with $2.78 billion, Titanic with $2.18 billion, Star Wars: The Force Awakens with $2.07 billion, and Jurassic World with $1.67 billion. Fast 8 comes out in April of 2017. See every Fast & Furious movie ranked by money below.
1. Furious 7: $1,516,045,911
The top grossing of all the Fast & Furious movies is Furious 7. Released in 2015, the film took in $1.5 billion at the worldwide box office and $353 million domestically. That makes it the sixth highest grossing movie of all time, beaten only by Avatar, Titanic, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jurassic World and Avengers. The film was originally slated for release in July of 2013, but key actor Paul Walker’s untimely death in a real-world car crash halted production. The film was reportedly completed using Walker’s stunt doubles, brothers and CGI. Deleted scenes from earlier films also rounded out Walker’s part. Furious 7 started out with a budget of $190 million but another $60 million was spent to rework and complete the movie after Walker’s death. That extra money was covered by the studio’s insurance policy. The film’s final song is Wiz Khalifa’s See You Again, a tribute to Walker. The video on YouTube has received nearly two billion YouTube views. That translates to about $15 million in ad revenue. The movie made more in its opening weekend than the first F&F film made in its entire run.
Related: How Much Money Has Every Star Wars Movie Made?
2. Fast & Furious 6: $788,679,850
2013’s Fast & Furious 6 made the second most money of any of the Fast & Furious movies at the worldwide box office with $789 million worldwide and $239 million domestically. The film had a reported budget of $160 million. Where did all that money get spent? Not only did it get used to pay the actors like Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Ludacris, it also got spent in a variety of ways related to production. For instance, over 100 cars were wrecked during the movie’s filming. Think that’s a lot? Not compared to Furious 7. Over 230 cars were supposedly destroyed during the making of that movie. That’s nothing compared to Transformers 3, which wrecked an estimated 532 cars. That last stat might be cheating a bit, since those vehicles were flood damaged to begin with. Another big budget hike came from the tank chase at the end. Initially, the studio wanted that chase created with CGI, but director Justin Lin pushed for it to be filmed with a real tank and real cars.
Here’s How Much Money Every Fast & Furious Movie Has Made
The chart above shows how much money every Fast & Furious movie has made over time. Looking at the generally rising bars, someone in the franchise is doing something right. An argument can be made that actor Paul Walker’s death during the filming of Furious 7 upped the film’s box office take exponentially. The morbid fascination around seeing an actor’s final work could certainly be at least partially responsible for the film’s high level of success. That brings up two considerations. The first is that, judging by how much money the earlier movies made, Furious 7 was destined to make more than previous installments anyway. The second is, will 2017’s Fast 8 be able to top the box office performance of its predecessor? It seems unlikely, and in truth anything in the neighborhood of $1 billion would probably be seen as continuing the franchise’s upward progression.
Fast & Furious Series | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Year | Movie | Worldwide Theater Earnings | Domestic Theater Earnings |
| 1 | 2015 | Furious 7 | $1,516,045,911 | $353,007,020 |
| 2 | 2013 | Fast & Furious 6 | $788,679,850 | $238,679,850 |
| 3 | 2011 | Fast Five | $626,137,675 | $209,837,675 |
| 4 | 2009 | Fast & Furious | $363,164,265 | $155,064,265 |
| 5 | 2003 | 2 Fast 2 Furious | $236,350,661 | $127,154,901 |
| 6 | 2001 | The Fast and the Furious | $207,283,925 | $144,533,925 |
| 7 | 2006 | The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift | $158,468,292 | $62,514,415 |
| Totals | $3,896,130,579 | $1,290,792,051 |
3. Fast Five: $626,137,675
The first movie in the franchise to star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Fast Five is the 3rd biggest moneymaker in the series. The film took in $626 million worldwide and $239 million in the U.S. Released in 2011, its budget was $125 million, making it highly profitable. In the movie, there’s a stunt that depicts a truck smashing into a moving train. No miniatures or CGI were used for this sequence, instead using a real truck, a real train and a real collision. Stunts like this one eat up movie budget money fast, but judging by the franchise’s earnings, the cost is justified in the minds of audience members. Despite being highly successful at the box office, the series hasn’t escaped ridicule. The news spoof blog The Onion released an interview with the movie’s supposed scriptwriter, who is a five year-old boy. When the boy was asked how many sequels are planned, his answer was, “six hundred.”
#F8 in Iceland! @Tyrese & @FGaryGray take you on location for a first look at the crew’s new ice cars. #FastFridayshttps://t.co/rgUpl5pGjO
— Fast & Furious (@FastFurious) June 3, 2016
4. Fast & Furious: $363,164,265
Getting down into the mortal money realms, 2009’s Fast & Furious made $363 million worldwide and $155 million at home. That makes it the 4th biggest moneymaker in the franchise. The movie had a reported budget of $85 million, which is about half as much as Furious 7. The movie stars series regulars Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. Had the movie not made so much money, it might have been the last of the Fast & Furious franchise. Vin Diesel is said to have wanted to make this movie and the next movie in quick succession, but the studio heads balked, saying they would rather see how ticket sales for this film went before committing to a 5th installment. The movie had the biggest April opening ever with $72.5 million. At the time, that was also the biggest opening for a Universal Pictures movie in history and the biggest opening for a movie about cars.
Related: How Much Money Has Every Marvel Movie Made?
5. 2 Fast 2 Furious: $236,350,661
The second film in the franchise, 2 Fast 2 Furious made the fifth most money of any Fast & Furious movie with $236 million worldwide. The film came out in 2003 and is the only movie in the series that doesn’t star Vin Diesel. Diesel has said the studio offered him $20 million for the second Furious movie but he turned it down because he didn’t like the script. The actor chose to star in Chronicles of Riddick instead. Looking back on that decision later, Diesel has been quoted as saying if he had it all to do over again, that’s one decision he might change. His reasoning? He says he owes it to the fans to make things better, and that doesn’t happen by just walking away. Not all of the movie’s cars were paid for by its $76 million budget. The first car that actor Paul Walker is seen driving in the picture was his own real life racing car.
6. The Fast and the Furious: $207,283,925
#6 on our list of Fast & Furious money makers is the original The Fast and the Furious from 2001. The movie made $207 worldwide, with $144 million of that coming in through U.S. theaters. The movie had a budget of $38 million. That’s about 1/7th the size of the final budget for Furious 7. The movie includes core actors Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Michelle Rodriguez. To make the cars in the movie pop out more, the moviemakers asked homeowners whose houses were included in the backgrounds to repaint their dwellings in more muted colors.
7. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift: $158,468,292
The third film in the franchise, Tokyo Drift from 2006 made the least money of any Fast & Furious movie. It only earned $62 million domestically on a budget of $85 million, which begs the question, why did the studio bet on film #4? Actor Vin Diesel has only a cameo in the film, since he still wasn’t happy with the direction the series was taking. The cameo came about after test audiences gave the movie high marks. The studio’s reasoning was that any Diesel appearance, however small, would inject much-needed life back into the movies. Diesel agreed only after the studio promised to release the rights to the Riddick films to him. That deal gave the actor full control of 2013’s Riddick. The movie wrecked over 100 cars. All the drifting in the movie was done by real cars and was not computer generated.
Upcoming Fast & Furious Movies
Will the Fast & Furious movie franchise end any time soon? Not likely. Vin Diesel is slated to appear in Fast & Furious 9 in 2019 and Fast & Furious 10 in 2021. If the movies keep earning money like they have so far, those movies could take in another $1.5 billion each. Along with 2017’s Fast 8, that could boost the total take for all ten movies to over $8 billion. Correction: all 11 movies. The first Furious movie was 1955’s The Fast and the Furious, starring John Ireland and Dorothy Malone. The film was made by storied B-movie producer Roger Corman, known for such films as Swamp Women, Teenage Cave Man and She Gods of Shark Reef. It was shot in nine days and the only two critical reviews on movie site Rotten Tomatoes describe it as “Uninvolving crime drama” and simply, “crap.”
Like reading about how much money movie franchises make? Check out this post on all the money made by every Star Wars movie, or this one about how much money every Marvel movie has made.
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Movies that Wrecked the Most Cars