娱乐英语新闻:"Fast Five" races to top of box office with record gains

LOS ANGELES, May 1 (Xinhua) -- "Fast Five," the latest street racing actioner shot to the top of the North America box office with highly impressive showings, setting many industry records on its way to the box office triumph during the Friday-Sunday period.

The latest installment of the popular "Fast And Furious" franchise opened with 3.8 million dollars in Thursday midnight showings, marking the best opening in the Universal history and the biggest for the action franchise. Throughout the day it garnered estimatedly 33.2 million dollars, which represented the best start for the franchise and has beaten the opening day of the previous installment, "Fast & Furious" (30.6 million dollars) in 2009.

This has put the film on pace to gross 83.6 million dollars in ticket sales at 3,644 locations, ending the business as the number one on the chart. The fifth installment of the franchise had "a huge debut, the biggest of the franchise and the best opening of the year thus far," industry analyst Paul Dergerabedian said.

A poster of the film "Fast And Furious 5".

The Vin Diesel/Dwayne Johnson actioner, which is directed by Justin Lin, also marked the highest-grossing opening day of all time in April and the second highest outside the summer, which technically commences the following weekend, and the holiday period, after "Alice in Wonderland"(40.8 million dollars).

The action film's good showing could cheer up Hollywood, as the year has been marked by a lackluster series of flicks. Overall ticket sales have dropped 15.5 percent from 2010 in a year when average ticket prices have leveled off to 8.01 dollars per seat -- a gain of just 12 cents over last year's average admission, according to North America box office authority.

The film has received positive and favorable reviews from film critics as a whole. Seventy-nine percent of critics on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes have given it a positive review, with a rating average of 6.3 out of a possible 10.

This is "a movie with exploding toilets, cars that move sideways and a big chase sequence with Walker and Brewster fleeing favela goons by crashing through the tin roofs of shanty-town shacks," Richard Corliss of Time Magazine said.

The next three spots were all occupied by holdovers from the previous week.

"Rio," a fellow Rio de Janeiro cartoon adventure of "Fast Five, " has a strong staying power and is estimated to sell 14.4 million dollars in movie tickets over the weekend in number two place. The Fox 3-D flick is on track to gross a total of 103.6 million dollars in 17-day screens. "Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family, "the third Madea-titled movie and the 11th film in the Tyler Perry film franchise, was next which will take in 10.1 million dollars for a total of 41.1 million dollars over 10 days. "Water For Elephants," a 20th Century Fox drama based on an acclaimed bestseller, was in number four place, garnering 9.1 million dollars in ticket sales. "Prom," a genial teen comedy distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, debuted with 5 million dollars in receipts.