'Fifty Shades Freed' Pushes The Trilogy Past $1 Billion Worldwide Opening Weekend

Universal/Comcast Corp.’s Fifty Shades Freed earned $18.5 million on its first Friday of domestic release, including $5.6m in Thursday previews. That’s down an understandable 14% from Fifty Shades Darker ($21.4m last February) and -38% from the boffo $30m opening day of Fifty Shades of Grey back in Feb. of 2015. One slight cause for concern is that Fifty Shades of Grey earned 28% of its Friday business on Thursday and Fifty Shades Darker earned 26% on its Friday business on Thursday, while Fifty Shades Freed earned 30% via Thursday previews. 

Should this third offering crashes due to frontloading, there might not be a sequel! In all seriousness, this is a $55 million trilogy capper to a series that had already earned $952m worldwide ($571m for the first film and $381m for the second) on a combined budget of $95m. So, no matter how far above the $1 billion mark this series gets, Fifty Shades Freed is a noble end to a shoulda-been-groundbreaking franchise which cost $150m for three movies and essentially paid for itself on the first go-around.

That is down an understandable 16% from Fifty Shades Darker ($46.6m last February) and -54% from the boffo $85.1m opening weekend of Fifty Shades of Grey back in Feb. of 2015.  Of note, Fifty Shades of Grey had a 2.8x weekend multiplier (during a $94m Fri-Mon holiday debut), Fifty Shades Darker had a 2.2x weekend multiplier and Fifty Shades Freed had a 2.09x weekend multiplier.

Of note, the film earned a B+ from CinemaScore and played 75% female, 55% under-30, 53% Caucasian, 22% Hispanic, 13% African American, 8% Asian and 4% "other." Oddly enough, Fifty Shades Darker (which capitalized on Valentine’s Day falling on a Tuesday) turned out to be leggier than the super-frontloaded first installment. The sequel earned $114m from a $46m debut (2.14x) while the original made $166m from an $85m Fri-Sun opening (1.97x).

This year's Valentine's Day falls on a Wednesday, so we'll see if the film can get a similar boost as did the previous movie. Point being, there is every reason to hope that this one-of-a-kind franchise can leg it out to at least $80m in North America. $100m domestic isn't likely, but it's still possible.

The film also earned $98.1 million overseas, which bodes well for the Dakota Johnson/Jamie Dornan trilogy capper. Both previous films earned 70% of their global takes overseas. So, if we presume that what happened before will happen again, we can over/under $275m worldwide for this $55m, R-rated erotic drama. That will push the entire Fifty Shades trilogy to $1.225 billion worldwide on combined $150m budget, putting it near the top among exclusively R-rated franchises.

The $150 million-budgeted Fifty Shades trilogy, based on E.L. James’ best-selling BSDM-themed romantic drama/thriller series, has now earned just $1.089 billion at the global box office. That puts it in rare company among R-rated franchises, alongside The Matrix ($1.6b over three films), The Hangover ($1.4b over three films), Alien ($1.328b not counting the PG-13 Alien vs. Predator), Resident Evil ($1.2b over six movies), The Conjuring ($1.2b over four films), Die Hard ($1.05b not counting Live Free or Die Hard) and The Terminator ($1b just counting the first three R-rated offerings).

That is not counting inflation (Lethal Weapon earned $955 million over four movies from 1987 to 1998), but I am still impressed. The Fifty Shades series is holding well considering this is an entirely fan-driven series, with no Deathly Hallows part 2-ish finale bump. This is a franchise that could have easily crashed and burned after the buzzy and much-discussed initial installment, but it it is earning in its third installment what would have still been considered impressive for the first chapter.

Credit a loyal fanbase that stuck around after the merely curious moviegoers decided once was enough. Credit reasonable budgeting that didn’t require record-breaking box office for huge profits. Moreover, credit the fact that, even in 2018, a big-ish budget erotic drama led by and targeting women is still a huge novelty and unlike anything else in the marketplace.