FAST FIVE NOW THIRD-BIGGEST EARNER OF YEAR

While much attention has been directed at the performance of summer blockbusters, analysts appear to be overlooking the commanding performance of Fast Five, which passed the $600-million mark on the worldwide box office over the weekend. The fifth installment of the Fast and Furious franchise collected $370,000 in ticket sales in 40 countries over the weekend, the Los Angeles Times reported, to bring its worldwide gross to $601.6 million, well ahead of the previous high for the series, the $363.2 million collected worldwide for the francise’s fourth film in 2009. (Fast Five earned a total of $208.5 million during its domestic run.) The movie is now the third-highest-grossing film of 2011, behind Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Times with $1.02 billion and Transformers: Dark of the Moon with $645 million.