Fast & Furious 7 tops box office after massive weekend

Fast & Furious 7 concludes with a heartfelt tribute to late star Paul Walker.

Fast & Furious 7 has sped to the top of the local box office, after a weekend that saw the high octane film land the second biggest opening weekend ever.

The seventh film in the franchise, which suffered the death of a lead actor mid-filming, scored $2.82 million over the Easter weekend in New Zealand.

In comparison, the sixth instalment scored $1.82 million when it debuted here in 2013.

That puts F&F7 in the No. 2 spot for biggest 2D opening weekend ever, with only Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 ahead of it.

In the process, it's become the biggest opening for a film this year, beating the wildly popular Fifty Shades of Grey.

F&F7 also performed well overseas, with an eye-popping $147.2 million (NZ$195.3m) from 4004 locations, box office firm Rentrak reported.

The latest installment in Universal's homegrown franchise also solidified its place as the ninth biggest opening of all time, right behind Spider-Man 3's US$151 million (NZ$200.3m) bow in 2007.

The film, which was delayed from its original July 2014 release date following Walker's death in November 2013, could be the first in the series to hit US$1 billion.

Top 10 opening weekends (NZ):

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
2. Fast and Furious 7
3. Twilight Saga: New Moon
4. Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King
5. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
6. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
7. Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
8. Iron Man 3
9. Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers
10. Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1

- nzherald.co.nz with AP