• by Thom Forbes  @tforbes, April 6, 2015

Universal’s “Fast and Furious 7” lived up to its name over its opening weekend, busting out with the largest opening ever in April for Hollywood — good enough to squeak into the Top 10 overall — and satisfying fans of the late Paul Walker with “a happy ending” for his character Brian O'Conner, writesUSA Today’s Brian Truitt, revealing that “he drives off into the sunset after one last ride with his friend till the end, Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel).”

The flick brought in $143.6 million at the North American box office and $240.4 million overseas for a worldwide launch of $384 million, reports the Hollywood Reporter’s Pamela McClintock, who compares the series’ staying power to “Hollywood's most iconic franchises — think Harry Potter and James Bond.”

“It is the ninth-biggest opening ever and No. 1 among movies not based on a comic book such as The Dark Knight or young-adult novel such as The Hunger Games, points out the Wall Street Journal’s Ben Fritz. “The latest results are also 47% higher than the opening of 2013’s ‘Fast & Furious 6,’ reflecting the continuing growth of a series that began in 2001 with a modestly budgeted movie about illegal street racing.”

“Having franchises is core to the studio’s business and having one that we own outright is, from a business perspective, great,” studio chair Donna Langley tells Fritz.

It “is a rare series that continues to build momentum more than a decade after the first film debuted,” observesVariety’s Brent Lang. “It continues to add new members, such as Jason Statham and Kurt Russell, to the ensemble cast and ups the ante around its action set pieces (you will believe a Lykan HyperSort — [that’s a car] — can fly).”

And you’ll also come to believe that an action movie can rack up pretty impressive numbers across demographics.

“As with previous installments, ‘Furious 7’ played to a diverse crowd, with non-Caucasians making up 75% of the audience. Hispanics made up the majority of ticket buyers (37%), followed by Caucasians (25%), African-Americans (24%), Asians (10%) and other (4%). Gender-wise, the turnout was fairly even, with males making up 51% of the audience. In terms of age, 66% of the audience was over the age of 25,” writes McClintock.

“Someone that I admire quite a lot recently said this is a franchise that really looks like America, and there are characters that everyone can relate to. I think that's a big plus,” Universal president of domestic distribution Nicholas Carpou tells McClintock. “And I think Paul was another big reason for people to come to our movie.”

The studio’s handling of the death of Walker, “a popular good guy” with both fans and his fellow actors, from an unrelated car accident in November 2013 was characterized as “restrained but effective” by one industry marketing executive who, like most of the people interviewed by The Wrap’s Todd Cunningham, asked for anonymity. “‘They didn’t lean on it, but they touched on it,’ said another industry insider,” writes Cunningham, pointing out that the franchise’s “fan base likes to think of itself as a family, and nothing put that to the test like Walker’s death.”

“I think from the very moment of Walker’s tragic passing, Universal did a masterful job of honoring his memory and respecting his legacy, while at the same time going about the business of marketing one of the biggest movies on their slate,” Rentrak senior analyst Paul Dergarabedian tells him. “It takes a tremendous amount of sensitivity and diplomacy to walk the perfect public relations tightrope whenever something unexpectedly tragic like this happens.” 

Reviews have been favorable, too. Consider this:

“Just as some movies by the most distinctive directors also prove to be profitable, some movies made as part of a baldly commercial slate also have artistic merit — and James Wan’s ‘Furious 7’ is among the latter. It exhibits simple joy in its intricate cleverness, and sincere wonder in physical action, the primal heat of family bonds, and hearty humor under pressure,” writes Richard Brody for TheNew Yorker. Yes, TheNew Yorker.

Overall, the movie garnered a respectable 83% score on the Tomatometer from critics; 90% from those who purchase popcorn and ginormous containers of sugar water. Danner Franisch does a “qualitative analysis of all seven (and a half) ‘Furious’ films for Entertainment Weekly and declares that 7, “on a structural level … is the single most important film in the franchise.”

In the event that you’ve resisted the temptation to check out the action up until now, you can catch up with it by watching all the trailers compiled here by the Washington Post’s Thomas Johnson, thus avoiding “sitting through more than 14 hours of drag racing and assorted mayhem.” And The Verge has cut that 15 minutes of action to a 10-minute YouTube summary of the plots of the first six full-length films.  

There’s no definitive word yet on whether there will be a number 8, but only in Hollywood would there not be.