NEWSMAKERS | At the box office, ‘Fast Five’ races to 1st place with $83.6M

NEWSMAKERS

At the box office, ‘Fast Five’ races to 1st place with $83.6M

LOS ANGELES

“Fast Five” has left the competition in the dust with an $83.6 million debut to grab the No. 1 spot at the weekend box office, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The movie reteams stars Vin Diesel and Paul Walker as outlaw driving aces and adds Dwayne Johnson as a federal agent on their tail. The action expands beyond the franchise’s traditional racing scene into a broad crime romp.

Universal Pictures’ fifth movie in the “Fast and the Furious” franchise was by far this year’s biggest opening. Its take was more than double the previous best of $39.2 million for “Rio,” the 20th Century Fox animated hit that slipped to No. 2 with $14.4 million.

Coming in third place was “Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family” with $10.1 million. In fourth place was “Water for Elephants” with $9.1 million, and in fifth was “Prom” with $5 million.

Nearly 23 million in US watched royal wedding

NEW YORK

Nearly 23 million Americans rose early Friday to watch Prince William and Kate Middleton tie the knot.

The Nielsen Co. said the 22.76 million viewers were spread out over 11 different networks. The company’s measurement was for the period of 6 a.m. to 7:15 a.m. EDT, when the ceremony was taking place.

Nielsen did not have an estimate of how many people watched worldwide.

Websites reported high traffic, too. ABCNews.com said it’s online traffic Friday was its highest since the 2008 presidential election. And, E! Online said its 23.6 million page views on Friday was its most ever.

The wedding was telecast on ABC, CBS, NBC, Telemundo, Univision, BBC America, CNN, E! Entertainment, Fox News Channel, MSNBC and TLC.

Associated Press