A Closer Look at 'Black Panther's Record Smashing Opening
by Brad Brevet
February 20, 2018
Actual grosses for the weekend are in and
Black Panther continues to break more and more records after becoming only the fifth film to ever deliver over $200 million in its first three days of release and the second largest four-day gross in history. Those, however, are just some of the highlights from this past weekend and we'll begin by taking a look at the film's performance, beginning with the charts where
Black Panther sits at #1.
- LARGEST THURSDAY PREVIEW GROSS IN THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY - $25.2 million
PREVIOUS RECORD HOLDER: Deadpool ($12.7 million
Beyond those charts,
Black Panther places second only to
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as the second highest
four-day gross of all-time and the second largest
Sunday of all-time by just $485,750.
Black Panther also places second only to
The Avengers on several charts, including the second highest opening for a
comic book adaptation, for a film in the
Marvel Cinematic Universe, for a
Marvel Comic adaptation and for a
superhero movie. For that matter, within the Marvel Cinematic Universe,
Black Pantherhas already outgrossed the lifetime domestic totals for
Doctor Strange ($232.6m),
Thor: The Dark World($206.3m),
Thor ($181m),
Ant-Man ($180.2m),
Captain America: The First Avenger ($176.6m) and
The Incredible Hulk ($134.8m) and will top
Captain America: The Winter Soldier ($259.7m) once Tuesday grosses arrive.
The film also led the three-day weekend which saw the
seventh largest gap between first and second place as it topped
Peter Rabbit by $185.5 million. Going further, the overall four-day weekend saw that gap grow into the second largest gap, topping
Peter Rabbit by $218.7 million. This past weekend was also the
third largest weekend overall with the top twelve delivering a combined $270.9 million, of which
Black Pantheraccounted for nearly 75%.
Debuting in 4,020 theaters,
Black Panther's per theater average for the three-day weekend was a massive
$50,250, the
third largest ever. Even more eye-opening,
Black Panther's theater count was the smallest among the
top fifteen openings of all-time and second only to
Furious 7 in the top 25.
Internationally, despite not debuting in China (March 9), Japan (March 1) or Russia, the film still delivered the
15th largest worldwide debut of all-time. The film also posted the highest grossing February opening of all-time in the UK and Ireland ($24.9m), the Netherlands ($2.4m), Mexico ($9.2m), Brazil ($9.5m) and Colombia ($1.8m).
Looking ahead, it's impossible to determine just how high
Black Panther's domestic total will climb after an opening of this size.
Deadpool delivered a 2.74x multiplier after opening over the same weekend in 2016, which when applied to
Black Panther's opening, translates to a domestic run over $550 million. Looking at the multipliers for the four other films that opened over $200 million —
The Force Awakens,
Star Wars: The Last Jedi,
Jurassic World and
The Avengers — they range from
Force Awakens' stellar 3.78x to a 2.81x multiplier for
The Last Jedi, which is in the tail end of its domestic run. While it would be unreasonable to expect
Black Panther to perform on the scale of
Force Awakens, the three other multipliers suggest a domestic run from $567-631 million.
Things do get a little less optimistic when you consider the 2.4x multiplier for
Avengers: Age of Ultron and 2.28x multiplier for
Captain America: Civil War, which would put
Black Panther's domestic run anywhere from $460-485 million.
Overall, it feels relatively safe to expect a domestic run over $550 million, which would make
Black Panther the seventh largest domestic performance of all-time and the second largest in the MCU, behind only
The Avengers ($623.3m). That said, should it follow
The Avengers and delivers a 3x multiplier we're looking at a $605M+ run at the domestic box office, while a performance closer to
Jurassic World's run pushes that total over $630 million.
Where it goes internationally will be interesting to watch, four films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have topped $1 billion worldwide. Will
Black Panther become the fifth?
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