Vin Diesel and Paul Walker in "The Fast and the Furious"

The PG-13 action drama pulled into theaters with a high octane ESTIMATED $41.6 million at 2,628 theaters ($15,830 per theater).

Fast, which only cost $38 million to produce, appears to be well on its way to a very profitable $100 million in domestic theaters.

Fast's average per theater was the highest for any film playing in wide or limited release this weekend.

Directed by Rob Cohen and produced by Neal H. Moritz, it stars Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster.

"It's the eighth all-time June opener and Universal's sixth highest opener ever," Universal distribution president Nikki Rocco said Sunday morning. "And it ranks in the Top 25 of all time openers in history, which is a lot to say for a little film that cost $38 million. It's Rob Cohen's biggest opener and Neal Moritz's biggest opener."

(Exhibitors Relations Co., a film industry statistical research firm, lists The Fast and the Furious as the seventh best June opener if estimates hold.)

Pointing out that Fast is playing in 2,628 theaters, which she felt was the perfect number of theaters for it to open in, rather than in 3,000-plus locations, which has become typical for summer releases. "This is a lesson that you don't need to be in 3,500 playdates to do a huge gross," Rocco said. "I want to point out to filmmakers that if you're not in (over 3,000 theaters) you can still have a blockbuster."

Focusing on Fast's high speed launch, Rocco observed, "Obviously, the grosses speak for themselves as an indication of the enormously successful opening that we've had. What I'm absolutely excited about are the exit polls. To see an excellent rating for all [demographic] categories come in at 60 percent where the norms are 35 percent is extraordinary. The core audience [which is the under-25 group] is 68 percent excellent. These are enormous exit polls.

"The Top Two boxes [excellent and very good] is 89 percent. Now remember, you're taking into consideration [in this score people who are] over 25 years of age. For the core audience, it's 91 percent. The Definite Recommend is 71 percent and 78 percent for the score. It's unbelievably impressive."

Rocco noted that the exits were done Saturday night, "so we're not just getting the must-see people who go out on a Friday night. These were polled on Saturday night. That's what's so amazing to me. The breakdown of the audience last night was 55 percent male and 45 percent female. That's not heavily loaded to males. And it was very ethnically mixed. It was 50 percent white, 24 percent Hispanic, 11 percent Asian, 10 percent black and 5 percent others. So it had a good ethnic mix. And it bodes well for today's business between kids being out of school and Sunday being a good day for films [that play well to ethnic audiences]. That's why we're counting on the business being extraordinary today. There are no [major televised] sporting events to interfere with us.

"I'm just so excited for Rob Cohen and Neal Moritz. And I have to commend our production group and Scott Stuber (co-president of production). This was an in-house developed project. Scott found an article in Vibe magazine about streetcar racing and he developed this. So it's kudos to the production group. Our marketing, distribution and production people have proven -- and this is just a further example -- how we can tap into a certain culture. We did it with Bring It On. We did it with American Pie. And now we've done it with The Fast and the Furious."

Focusing on the film's release, Rocco commented, "The distribution strategy was absolutely perfect. In an environment where it's almost a must that you find 3,000 playdates, we've just proven that 2,600 playdates gets the job done as well as any film opening with over 3,000 playdates. That's not to say that we won't have 3,000 playdates on other films, it's just to say that you go with the flow and do what the marketplace demands of you."

Rocco also tipped her hat to Universal Pictures vice chairman Marc Shmuger "for having the enthusiasm and the drive to convince us to move it from March or April to the summer. After the second test screening, Marc looked at everybody and discussed with the filmmakers the fact that this would be a perfect summer programmer."

Rocco noted that at the time she believed Fast was going to be hit and felt she needed it on the studio's spring release schedule. "Marc had the vision and the guts to say, 'We could do it, team. Let's move it to the summer.' The only date that we felt comfortable with was this date, which was sandwiched between Tomb Raider and A.I. I have to give him a lot of credit for having that vision and the faith.

"I like to space out all my hits and we needed a film in the spring. But everything that Marc said made so much sense that we moved it. He convinced us, so we found this date. We knew we weren't going to go on the Tomb Raider date (or) the A.I. date. We had Jurassic Park 3 set for mid-July, so we didn't want to go there. This was the only reliable date that I could pick. And I didn't want to go earlier and cut into The Mummy Returns."

20th Century Fox and Davis Entertainment's PG rated comedy sequel Dr. Dolittle 2 kicked off in second place to a solid ESTIMATED $26.71 million at 3,049 theaters ($8,761 per theater).

The 1998 original -- inspired by the 1967 musical -- opened the weekend of June 26-28, 1998 to $29.01 million at 2,777 theaters ($10,448 per theater). In its second weekend (July 3-5), the original fell 32% and placed second with $19.68 million at 2,871 theaters ($6,853 per theater). It went on to gross $144.2 million in domestic theaters.

Directed by Steve Carr and produced by John Davis, it stars Eddie Murphy.

"I'm looking at the overall weekend and I can't believe it -- it's up [over] 40 percent from last year," Fox distribution president Bruce Snyder said Sunday morning. "It's astonishing. How much can a market expand? What it says is that there's enough pictures that they do want to see. You're looking at five movies over $10 million. It's just amazing."

Looking at Dolittle's opening weekend, Snyder noted, "We were up 16 percent from Friday to Saturday. I was looking for a little bigger bump, but I guess there's just so much business out there. I was also looking at Atlantis and Shrek, which are family movies [like Dolittle]. They did almost $24 million between them and with our $26.7 million, you're looking at $50 million in family movies. It was a terrific weekend and I'm thrilled with our number. I believe we'll be around all summer with it."

Some observes had expected Dolittle to open in first place, which Snyder said had looked likely until this week's tracking data became known.

"If you had asked me that two weeks ago, I would have told you I thought so, too," he said. "As of this week, you could see the heat building on the teenage movie. One thing about teenage movies is that the kids have to get in there immediately. Dolittle you can see this week, next week, the week after. When it comes to teenage movies, (you've got to be there right away), which is why it goes down from Friday to Saturday. [Fast] was off 10 percent, which is not a big drop on such a huge number, but it's indicative of the teenage moviegoing habit vs. family [audiences]."

Looking for a long run on Dolittle, he added, "We'll be talking about it in August."