Big-budget Hollywood movies often include plenty of on-screen property damage, but The Fast and the Furious franchise has taken it to an impressive level. Andrew Segal recently wrote an article for British insurance site insurethegap.com tabulating the on-screen damages in the seven movies in the series released so far (The Fate of the Furious comes out in April), and came up with total damages of 419 million pounds. That translates to $524 million U.S. at current exchange rates, which is a hefty amount. The really impressive part is the chart showing how this has escalated over time, though:
So, yeah, things have gotten much, much crazier in the last two movies. Segal’s article notes that Furious 7 saw a ton of serious building damage in particular, with about 20 buildings suffering damage in that category (including a collapsing public garage and skyscrapers in Abu Dhabi). Just check out that skyscraper scene:
Yep, that’s a lot of property damage all right, especially when you consider that’s a Lykan Hypersport car, estimated to be worth $3.4 million (the highest single total for any vehicle the series has destroyed so far). Things have come a long way from the days when The Blues Brothers was just destroying 60 police cars worth $400 each. But hey, Furious 7 made $1.5 billion in worldwide box office, so the Fast and the Furious franchise can get away with totalling a few expensive cars. They’ve also wrecked a lot of stuff in general; Segal’s analysis estimates they’ve destroyed 142 cars (while damaging 169 more) and 37 “special vehicles” (buses, trains, helicopters, etc), while destroying 31 buildings and damaging 53 more.
As per who’s doing the damage? It’s mostly the good guys. According to Segal, they’ve done about 261 million pounds ($326 million U.S.) in damage. Jason Statham’s villainous character Deckhard Shaw has the highest single total, though, racking up 148 million pounds ($185 million U.S.), 94 per cent of the villains’ total.
The question is if The Fate of the Furious will continue to raise the stakes in terms of on-screen damage done. Judging by the trailers that have come out so far, the answer is probably yes. Submarines typically aren’t cheap.
