Fast and Furious 7 raced to the top of the box office in Los Angeles, picking up a massive US$143.6 million (S$197.17 million) in its opening weekend.
According to Reuters, that establishes a new high-water mark for the month of April, blowing past the US$95 million debut of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, as well as marks the highest grossing kick-off for any film in the Fast and Furious franchise. It also ranks ninth among the top 10 openings in history.
The movie released in Singapore on April 2.
According to a Wall Street Journal article on April 1, "Fast and Furious" filmmakers wrecked more than 230 cars just for the seventh installment in the car racing movie franchise.
About 30 of these vehicles, including several black Mercedes-Benzes, a Ford Crown Victoria and a Mitsubishi Montero were cleared by Bonnie's Car Crushers, near Colorado Springs, where a car chase was staged on a twisty mountain.
The owner of the scrapyard, Mr Richard Jansen, had put up a sign that said "We buy junk cars", and was then contacted by the film crew.
Filmmakers insisted he shred or crush them all, to prevent anyone from fixing one up and getting hurt in a damaged movie car, the article said."It was kind of unusual, to see some relatively late-model Mercedes-Benzes, all crunched up and good for nothing," Mr Jansen was quoted as saying.
Mr Dennis McCarthy, picture car coordinator for the Fast and the Furious movies said that the film crew had to follow a specific protocol to account for every single car destroyed in each film.
