Black Panther Roars Into Box Office Record Books After Huge Weekend

Looks like everyone was an honorary citizen of Wakanda this weekend, as the Disney/Marvel film Black Panther dominated this weekend at the box office, bringing in a stunning $235 million over the four-day President’s Day. The movie, starring Chadwick Boseman and directed by Ryan Coogler, has blown away it’s original tracking in less than a month. According to said tracking back on January 25th, based off advanced ticket sales and other metrics, the movie was expected to bring in an impressive $100 to $120 million.

Since that estimate, Black Panther had vastly grown in popularity, turning from your run of the mill Marvel movie to a must-see event, veering it into record-setting territory. The Thursday night preview made $25.2 Million, making it the largest Thursday night preview gross for a February opener and the second-largest preview gross for a Marvel film, with Avengers: Age of Ultron being number one. The film has continued to shatter all projections since then.

On Sunday, estimations for Black Panther came in around $218 million for the Presidents Day weekend, but they had to revise their numbers, tacking on an astounding $17 million by Monday. The movie made $60.1 million on Sunday alone, making it the second best Sunday in the history of the movie industry, falling slightly behind 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens record of $60.6 million.

Thanks to 73% of schools being closed nationwide today, Black Panther tacked on another $33 Million, bringing it to a whopping $235 million four-day debut.

Black Panther also pushed up the domestic gross for a movie this year by 6.9% to $1.65 billion, according to ComScore. This is also the highest three-day debut ever for a February film and the fifth highest of all time behind only Star Wars: The Force Awakens at $248 million, Star Wars: The Last Jedi at $220 million, Jurassic World at $208.8 million and The Avengers at $207.4 million.

Another record blown away was the largest President’s Day weekend, demolishing Deadpool’s 2016 mark of $152 million. Overall, if you take into account the entire continent of North American, the four-day period should hit an astounding $340 million, far above the $278 million mark for Deadpool in 2016, according to ComScore. The movie fared extremely well overseas as well, raking in $168.7 million in 48 global markets through Sunday. So that pushes overall box office numbers to over $500 million.

The movie stars Boseman as T’Challa, the new ruler of Wakanda, taking over a technologically advanced society after the passing of his father in Captain America: Civil War. The movie also stars Michael B. Jordan as T’Challa’s antagonist Eric Killmonger, who intends to take over the throne. Letitia Wright, Lupita Nyong’o, Angela Bassett, Danai Gurira, and Daniel Kaluuya also star.

We should expect Black Panther to dominate the box office for the next few weeks as well, as no other potential blockbuster movies are on the horizon. So, expect Black Panther to further cement its place in history, and take down a few records as well.

In related news, the soundtrack that accompanied the movie, curated by Kendrick Lamar and TDE snagged the top spot on the Billboard 200, moving 154,000 units, 52,000 of those units from traditional album sales.

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