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Furious Flies to Fiscal Firmament

Paul Blart gave it all he could. But the guy’s little Segway just couldn’t keep up with the Fast & Furious gang’s turbocharged, skyscraper-leaping sports cars.

Furious 7 proved once again that a body in motion tends to stay in motion—motoring all the way to No. 1 against some lackluster competition. Sure, Furious is beginning to show signs of needing a petrol pit stop, but for now the flick continues to roar around the box office track, scooping up an estimated $29.1 million en route to its third straight win, hitting a number of landmarks along the way.

What landmarks? I’m so glad you asked. It is, of course, the most lucrative movie of the year domestically, pocketing $294.4 million from North American moviegoers. It’s the biggest movie of the year internationally, too, pulling down a near-titanic $1.1 billion with overseas markets factored in. In fact, that worldwide cash makes Furious 7 the (appropriately enough) seventh biggest money-making movie ever—right behind Iron Man 3 ($1.2 billion). And obviously, the flick ain’t done yet.

It’s fairly unlikely that Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 will ever reach Furious 7′s rarified air—not unless the makers of Avengers: Age of Ultron decide to donate most of its grosses to the flick. But a $24 million, second-place weekend maybe isn’t so bad for a movie like this, especially given its 0% “freshness” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Methinks that Mr. Blart may be leaving the mall—at least the mall multiplex—soon.

Unfriended, a low-budget fright flick that stirs up its screams on social networks, finished third with $16 million. It bested holdovers Home and The Longest Ride, which finished with $10.3 million and $6.9 million respectively.

The weekend’s third wide release, Disneynature’s documentary Monkey Kingdom, scrambled to $4.7 million to finish seventh. That’s not a great take by Disneynature’s standards (which always unveils a new animal doc just in time for Earth Day). For comparison, last year’s Bears dug up $4.8 million in about 300 fewer theaters. It’s a good thing that monkeys work pretty cheap. For bananas, you might say.

Final figures update: 1. Furious 7, $29.2 million; 2. Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, $23.8 million; 3. Unfriended, $15.8 million; 4. Home, $10.6 million; 5. The Longest Ride, $7 million.