Furious 7 is the last film which starred American actor Paul Walker, and it opened up over the Easter weekend with a record-breaking $384 million, leading Universal Studios to hope that the car speed flick might be its first shot to hit the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office.
Universal is currently the only major Hollywood studio to never earn $1 billion or more at the worldwide box office in its first outing, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park raked in $970 million globally upon its release in 1993, which only grew to $1.027 billion after Universal decided to release it in 3D back in summer 2013.
Following Jurassic Park's success was Despicable Me with $970.8 million, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial with $792.9 million, and Fast and Furious 6 with $239 domestically and $550 million overseas, making it a total of $789 million in 2013.
Furious 7 already has a more impressive open compared to Furious 6, and movie insiders are predicting that Furious 7 could gross more than $300 million in North America and probably around $700 to $750 million overseas.
In fact, it already opened 23 percent ahead of the $117 million generated by Furious 6 during the Memorial Day weekend back in 2013, and also 47 percent ahead of the previous movie's three-day take of $97 million.
"Given that Furious 7 is already closing in on $400 million globally and has the marketplace pretty much to itself for the next month until Avengers: Age of Ultron opens, Universal is positioned perfectly for a race to the $1 billion mark," says Rentrak box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian.
So far, only 19 movies have reached the opening $1 billion mark, and experts are saying that the list will grow this year because of Furious 7, Avengers: Age of Ultron (May 1), James Bond: Spectre (November 6) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (December 18).
Furious 7 lead actor Vin Diesel even said that the latest movie deserves a shot for Best Picture at the Oscars. "Universal is going to have the biggest movie in history with this movie," he told Variety. "It will probably win best picture at the Oscars, unless the Oscars don't want to be relevant ever."
Furious 7 is very significant to Diesel because it paid tribute to his good friend Walker, who lost his life in a tragic car accident last year. "There is nothing that will ever come close to the power of this thing," he said.
