“FURIOUS 7” SPEEDS TO $143.6M DEBUT

Furious 7: $143.6 million. Never had the month of April seen such an opening-weekend result at the box office. Long regarded as the lead-in month to the summer season during which studios release dicey commercial fare, April, in the minds of studio executives, would appear to evince the sentiments in the vintage song “April Showers” (“Though April showers may come your way/they bring the flowers that bloom in May”). Previously, no film released in April had ever made it past the $100-million mark in its debut; the closest thing to that marker was the record-breaking $95-million debut of Captain America: The Winter Soldier over the same weekend a year ago. To be sure, studios have been cautiously releasing potential blockbusters in April, and the Fast and Furious franchise has consistently broken records for the month. But the success of Furious 7 — without the benefit of 3D surcharges, mind you — would appear to move summer up by a couple of months, so far as the movie season is concerned.