“F1” has earned $293 million globally at the box office in just 10 days, surpassing the total theatrical earnings of Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” ($158 million) and Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” ($221 million), making it Apple’s top-grossing film to date.
That’s not a particularly difficult benchmark to break, since Apple has only released five films theatrically and two of them, “Fly Me to the Moon” ($42 million) and “Argylle” ($96 million), were outright flops.
Yet the ticket sales for “F1” are at least a step in the right direction for the fledgling studio’s theatrical ambitions. After Apple siphoned off a string of commercial misfires (with budgets at or above $200 million, neither “Killers of the Flower Moon” nor “Napoleon” were in danger of turning a theatrical profit), “F1” was considered an inflection point for the tech giant. There was a growing internal sense that if a crowd-pleaser like “F1” didn’t work on the big screen, Apple would be better off abandoning the movie business in favor of television. After all, the company has fielded plenty of small screen successes on Apple TV+ including “Severance” and “Ted Lasso.”
Positive word-of-mouth should contribute to the movie’s staying power, even as “F1” endures strong headwinds from “Jurassic World Rebirth” and upcoming blockbuster hopefuls like “Superman” and “Fantastic Four: The First Steps.” Outside of the United States and Canada, where “F1” has revved to $109.5 million, top-earning territories include China ($22 million), the United Kingdom ($17.3 million), Mexico ($12.3 million), France ($11.5 million) and Australia ($9.8 million).
MacDailyNews Take: Apple Studios finally has a box office hit!
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“Napoleon” was a stinker; Phoenix mumbled and pouted most of the time. His wife being portrayed by an already well-known actress made it a constant distraction; plus she was shown as a nut job. Ridley Scott did a great job with the costumes and battle scenes (his favorite hobby) but the BBC documentary was superior to this failed production. Much more history presented with very good narratives.
Stinker is right. It was a movie that made no sense (and was often ahistorical). It felt like a movie made by someone that hated his subject, and it showed. Such a waste of what could have been a fantastic movie.
F1 was a fun view; very exciting and realistic racing scenes, some of which had Pitt at the wheel. A decent plot and beautiful cinematography. A bit long, and the announcements during the hectic racing scenes were hard to hear well. Altogether very worthwhile.
I agree, a very exciting and interesting movie. I have no interest in racing or race cars, but this was actually fascinating, and the pacing was just great. Truly a thrilling movie.