Hispanic audience key for ‘Furious’

Hollywood —- In addition to the roar of car engines and the blast of automatic weapons fire, there’s another sound in “Fast & Furious” that’s been integral to the franchise’s success: Spanish-language dialogue and accents.

The latest installment of the action-thriller series has a distinctly Hispanic feel, including its south-of-the-border location settings, its soundtrack, several of its characters and its plot line (hot-rodding hero Dominic Toretto battles Mexico-based drug runners).

Those elements are no coincidence, and they’re partly responsible for the disproportionately large Hispanic crowds that the current film —- and the franchise in general —- have drawn, according to Universal Pictures, the movie’s distributor.

Adam Fogelson, Universal’s president of marketing and distribution, said that a limited sampling in five U.S. markets last weekend showed that 46 percent of the “Fast & Furious” audience was Hispanic.

Although that percentage was not necessarily “representative of the national sample,” Fogelson said, “it was again recognition of a huge part of the core fan base of this movie.”

The movie has performed well so far in Latin American territories, bagging the biggest opening of 2009 in Mexico and Central America and accounting for 50 percent of the weekend box office in Mexico and Brazil, according to Universal.