It’s no surprise that a tried-and-true franchise once took first place at the box office this weekend, but it’s somewhat astounding that Fast Five surpassed predictions of $70 million to rake in an estimated $83.6 million at the U.S. box office. In a very distant second place was Rio, which added another $14.4 million (for a total of $103.6 million) in its third week. Taking third and fourth, respectively, were Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family with $10.1 million and Water for Elephants with $9.1 million (which confirms what some of you hoped for last week; that is, the Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson, and Christoph Waltz combo did indeed have legs). Failing miserably over the weekend were Disney’s Prom in fifth place with $5 million and Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil, which also carried a 3D premium but only pulled in $4.1 million to land in sixth position. In sharp contrast to Fast Five the Hoodwinked sequel fared much worse than its 2005 predecessor’s opening weekend of $12 million and a total domestic take of $51 million. The good news in all of this is that there will be no Hoodwinked Three! Wolf Gets It in the Balls Again. Oh, and Universal has already begun its grateful declarations for just how well Fast Five performed in smashing all sorts of records:

Even with a -13% drop on Saturday, which would be normal because its Friday’s grosses expanded by midnight showings, that’s still a bigger North American weekend cume for Fast Five than the top 2 openings this year combined (Rio $39M/Rango $38M). The film received an “A” CinemaScore and an “A+” from moviegoers under age 18. In terms of records, Universal is claiming: the biggest opening in Universal history (besting Lost World: Jurassic Park’s $72.1M), the biggest opening of 2011 (besting Rio’s $39.2M), the biggest Universal opening for 2011 (besting Hop’s $37.5M), the highest opening for an April Release (besting Fast & Furious’ $71M), the highest opening for the last weekend in April (besting A Nightmare On Elm Street’s $39M), the highest opening for stars Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, and producer Neil Moritz, and director Justin Lin. A lot of Uni execs are breathing easier today now that they’ve delivered a nice fat hit to their new Comcast overlords who must have been wondering if they’d bought a bomb factory instead of a movie studio. Fast Five opened first overseas 10 days ago and this weekend grossed a huge $45.3M at 3,211 dates in just 14 territories. That raised its early international tally to $81.4M. So now the worldwide total stands at a whopping $165M. The pic opened No. 1 in each of the 10 new markets. The openings are bigger than all the previous Fast franchise films. (Paramount opened Marvel/Disney’s Thor head-to-head against Fast Five in more than a dozen markets but not in the U.S. and Canada until next Friday. Of course, sequels do better overseas than in this country.) But even rival studios say Fast Five is on track for a $300M foreign and $500M worldwide finish. “Here’s what I’m most proud of: there is nothing obvious about what happened. No one can say of course every single decision how it was going to be made, how it was going to be cast, when it was going to be dated, how it was going to be sold, was very startegically thought out. There is no reason for the 5th movie in a franchise to have pulled off what this pulled off,” Universal Pictures Chairman Adam Fogelson told me this morning.

[From Deadline]

Out of all of the above-mentioned achievements, the most interesting bit of information is that Fast Five set a new high for the franchise, and now we’re left to debate the reason for the extra $12 million or so. Is this unforseen increase due to the IMAX premiums or the presence of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson? Of course, the true reason is probably a combination of both factors, but I like to think that Johnson’s return to the WWE a few months ago and hosting duties for WrestleMania XXVII in early April both maximized his exposure and certainly persuaded more than a few wrestling fans to see his new movie. Also and for those who saw the movie, the homoeroticism of this installment was fairly unprecedented in its extremity (and I’m starting to realize now that the fact that Top Gun was also holding special viewings in many of its AMC theaters this weekend was no mere coincidence). Did anyone else hear audience members yelling, “Just kiss already!” during Vin Diesel and Johnson’s confrontational scenes? Such a nice way to kick off the summer movie season.

Movie stills courtesy of AllMoviePhoto