’Black Panther’: All The Box Office Records It Broke (And Almost Broke) In Its $235M Debut

The numbers are in and Black Panther is a monster hit. More than that, it has already earned a place in the box office history books in just its first three-to-four days of release. The movie earned a $201.8 million Fri-Sun weekend and will earn an estimated $235m over the Fri-Mon holiday. So, without further ado, I wanted to take a moment to note the copious big ways that the Ryan Coogler-directed/Chadwick Boseman-starring superhero spectacular has already planted its flag in the sand. Please enjoy eight box office records that Black Panther has already broken and ten more where it came awfully close to the top of the mountain. Let's put "All the Stars" or "Opps" on your music device of choice, open up that Box Office Mojo tab and dive in!

Biggest February opening weekend:

The previous high-water mark for a February opening weekend was Deadpool with $132 million over the Fri-Sun frame and $152m over the Fri-Mon Presidents Day weekend. While Black Panther lacked the Valentine’s Day advantage (Feb. 14 fell on a Saturday that year), it also played in 3D and had a PG-13 rating. Either way, it earned around 52% more than Deadpool and 148% more than Fifty Shades of Grey (which also had a Valentine’s Day Saturday advantage).

Point being, February has a new king of the box office. Oh, and it still had a terrific 2.66x weekend multiplier (The Avengers had a 2.58x multiplier without a Monday holiday), which makes sense given the A+ Cinemascore. It’s not the highest multiplier for an MCU opener, but it’s near the top of the food chain alongside their big November openers (Thor 2, Thor 3 and Doctor Strange).

Biggest non-sequel opening weekend:

Unless you want to count The Avengers as a non-sequel (which you should not, since it literally plays as a sequel to Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger), then Black Panther has the second-biggest non-sequel debut of all time. But absent that, Black Panther (an almost entirely stand-alone movie) has the new record for the biggest Fri-Sun launch for a non-sequel/prequel, displacing The Hunger Games which opened with $152m in March of 2012 (in 2D). And yes, it took this record even when accounting for inflation.

Biggest solo superhero launch of all time:

Since it opened above the $174 million opening weekend of Iron Man 3, Black Panther has the new milestone for a solo superhero Fri-Sun debut. Yes, I count Captain America: Civil War as an ensemble film (or at the very least a Captain America/Iron Man two-hander), but since Black Panther topped that film’s $179m Fri-Sun debut that’s somewhat trivial.

The only other bigger comic book superhero launch is The Avengers. If you want to play the inflation game, which is fair, the solo Black Panther adventure would be in fourth-place just behind The Dark Knight ($158 million in 2008 sans 3D, $202.5m adjusted for inflation), Avengers: Age of Ultron ($191m/$203.9m and The Avengers ($207m/$234m). By the way, if Black Panther ends up as frontloaded as Spider-Man 3 ($151m debut in 2007, which could be $201m today, for an eventual $336m domestic cume), it still gets to $445m domestic.

Biggest Fri-Sun opening weekend for a long holiday debut:

This is another one it swiped from Deadpool, as the MCU flick has now earned more money in its Fri-Sun frame than any movie ever that had an extra day before or after its conventional Fri-Sun opening weekend. It goes without saying that the Fri-Sun figure may have been even bigger without Presidents Day soaking up some of the demand. But I think all parties will find a way to cope, and Presidents Day weekend has a long history (Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Kingsman, Deadpool) of comic book movies breaking out.  

Biggest long holiday opening weekend:

In terms of all "long weekend openings," be they four days or six days, Black Panther’s estimated $235 million four-day launch (which could go up) is ahead of the $200 million Wed-Sun debut of Paramount/Viacom Inc.'s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the $180 million six-day Independence Day weekend openings for Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Spider-Man 2 (the latter in 2D way back in 2004), the $158 million Thurs-Sun opening of Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith, the $156 million Fri-Mon Memorial debut of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, the $156 million Tuesday-to-Sunday Independence Day weekend debut of the original Transformers and the $152m Fri-Mon opening of Deadpool (in 2D and with an R-rating).

Biggest opening weekend ever for any movie not directed by a white guy:

There is going to be a lot of talk about how the blow-out domestic and international box office triumph disproves conventional wisdom about what kind of folks must be the leads in big movies to make big bucks, but we should have already known that for years now (12 Years a Slave and Moonlight both made more overseas than in North America).

But Black Panther’s boffo opening is the biggest opening ever for any movie not helmed by a white guy, displacing James Wan’s Furious 7 (which earned $1.5 billion worldwide despite/because of a diverse cast). Although I’m sure they are all rooting for each other, I’d like to think that Wan or Patty Jenkins is sitting in a swivel chair right now petting an (evil) cat and plotting his or her revenge.

By the way, since The Force Awakens was sold as a Daisy Ridley/John Boyega two-hander, I would argue that said Star Wars story still counts as the biggest opening for a movie starring a minority actor.

Biggest-grossing movie (in North America) directed by a black filmmaker:

With at least $235 million in four days, it has already passed the (2D) domestic total of F. Gary Gray’s Fate of the Furious. Sure, it has some work to go to catch up with Fate of the Furious’ $1.1 billion global total, but after this weekend, with a $404m+ worldwide launch, that pie-in-the-sky scenario isn’t entirely implausible.

Biggest pre-summer opening weekend:

Black Panther has the fifth-biggest Fri-Sun debut of all time. And since two of the bigger ones were Star Wars movies in mid-December and the other two were summer flicks (Avengers and Jurassic World), Black Panther has dethroned Batman v Superman ($166 million) as the biggest pre-summer opener of all time.

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