Ever since 2009, when Vin Diesel made his return to the franchise, the Fast & Furious series has been on a serious upswing. The $155 million take of Fast and Furious in the U.S. ballooned to $209 million for Fast Five, and that was followed last year with Fast & Furious 6's $238 million domestic box office total. The more sequels come out, the more fans seem to be getting excited. That excitement is seriously showing for Fast & Furious 7, as the feature is still more than half a year away from release and yet is the most buzzed about title across multiple social media platforms.
The Chicago Tribune has been reading Digital Audience Ratings (DAR) statistics - a measurement to determine the content that is "resonating most across Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube and Wikipedia" - and their findings have concluded that Fast and Furious 7 was the most attention grabbing title on the internet over the last week. Much of this success has been attributed to the title's regular engagement with its Facebook audiences. As evidence of this, the newspaper pointed to a post about the Fast & Furious page hitting 50 million followers. This post got more than half a million "likes" and was shared by more than 20,000 people:
The title that took second place according to DAR statistics is perhaps just as strange as Fast & Furious 7, though for completely different reasons. Seventh Son, the upcoming Jeff Bridges-led fantasy film, apparently relaunched its social media campaign this week, and it was rather effective when you consider its placement on the top five this week. The film has had a rough go of it in the last year, as it wound up being caught in the middle of the divorce between Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures. Originally it was going to be released this past January, but when Legendary moved to Universal Pictures the feature was bumped off of the release calendar entirely. Now it is being prepared to come out in February of next year - a good two months before Fast & Furious 7.
Directed by James Wan and penned by Chris Morgan (who has penned every sequel since Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift), the seventh chapter in the Fast & Furious saga will be bringing back together not only experienced franchise members like Vin Diesel, Paul Walker (RIP), Dwayne Johnson, Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, Lucas Black, Michelle Rodriguez, and Jordana Brewster, but also newcomers Jason Statham, Tony Jaa, Kurt Russell, Nathalie Emmanuel, Djimon Hounsou, John Brotherton, and Iggy Azaela. The film is currently in post-production and will be in theaters on April 3, 2015.
SEE ALSO: 'Fast And Furious 7' Releases Candid Message To Fans After Finishing Filming
