‘Black Panther’ Set to Break Records on Opening Weekend

Surprising no one, Marvel’s newest film ‘Black Panther’ is already performing terrifically at the box office, with current predictions placing it as one of the most successful films in history by the end of the long weekend.

As covered by Deadline Hollywood, the movie’s 3 day opening weekend earnings are estimated to be around $187.6 million based on its performance on day one, which already places it as the sixth highest grossing opening weekend in the United States and Canada (the previous holder of that spot was Marvel’s own ‘Captain America: Civil War’).

However, Monday is President’s Day, meaning the film will be one of the rare ventures to open on a 4 day weekend, a distinction shared by yet another Marvel film, ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’. In this regard, though, it firmly defeats ‘Age of Ultron’, with experts predicting total earnings $216 million by the end of the fourth day.

Finally, opening at $72.2 million on day 1 according to Box Office Mojo, it places itself firmly as the 11th highest grossing opening day in history, beating out the fourth ‘Twilight’ movie and just shy of overtaking the original.

Altogether, this cements ‘Black Panther’ as one of the most successful films ever released, with competition for biggest pre-summer earnings not even coming close (the biggest contenders were Disney’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’ at $174.7 million and Warner Bros. ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ at $166 million).

Even beyond earnings, though, ‘Black Panther’ has already received rave reviews from critics and audiences alike. Cinemascore gave the film an A+ grade, something only the original ‘Avengers’ movie has been able to match in terms of Marvel properties. On Rotten Tomatoes, critics have scored it a 97% fresh rating post-opening day, making it one of the best received superhero movies on the platform (though consensus may change as more people review it).

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, though. Even beyond its identity as a Marvel movie, ‘Black Panther’ has been showing signs of success since it was first announced. Since they were first available back in January, pre-sale tickets had already outsold those for ‘Civil War’, with estimates placing 36% of the film’s Thursday preview event sales accounted for via Fandango pre-sales. Needless to say, people have been excited about the film for some time, and the excitement (and profits) don’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.