Black Panther has royally record shattering debut with $192M opening
Black Panther is the new king of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With a staggering and eye-opening debut, Marvel Studios’ latest effort proves there’s no slowing down this unstoppable box office juggernaut.
Black Panther opened to $195 million — good enough for the fifth highest debut weekend of all time. It only trails Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($247 million), The Last Jedi ($220 million), Jurassic World ($208 million) and Marvel’s The Avengers ($207 million). That’s historic numbers with no need for qualifiers, but is easily the best opening for a film starring a predominantly black cast.
Factoring in President’s Day tally, Black Panther is expected to end the weekend with $225 million. Deadpool previously had the best February opening with $152 million haul over the President’s Day weekend. That is long in the distance and completely shatters the narrative that black movies don’t sell. Black Panther also nabbed the best reviewed superhero film on Rotten Tomatoes with 97% fresh and the highest opening weekend for a black director (Ryan Coogler).
Box office prognosticators conservatively estimated Black Panther would bring in $120 million. That figure would still have been impressive clocking in at the No. 14 all-time comic book opening.
But Black Panther clearly was no regular superhero film. This was a movie that felt long overdue for a very long time.
But maybe we should have seen this coming? Last February, Get Out had an impressive $33 million debut on its way to a total $176 million gross. Girls Trip had a $31 million opening weekend en route to a $115 million total. It seems obvious in hindsight that black audiences were going to turn out in massive numbers to support a high quality black superhero effort the likes of which have never been seen.
Marvel Studios and parent company Walt Disney understood the significance of the film and heavily promoted it. Mainstream audiences couldn’t escape the promotional efforts whether watching the Super Bowl, the Olympics or the NBA All-Star Game. Warner Bros., by comparison wasn’t nearly as aggressive with the marketing blitz for Wonder Woman.
While it also featured a marginalized audience (females who wanted to see a female superhero front and center), Wonder Woman didn’t make nearly as big of an impact with a $103 million opening weekend.
ComScore reports Black Panther’s success wasn’t just due to black audiences. Their tracking had 37 percent black viewers, 35 percent white and 18 percent Latino.
Word of mouth should be strong as Black Panther joins Avengers as the only Marvel Studios films with an A+ score from ComScore.