It passed Beauty and the Beast ($503 million in 2017) on Monday to become the ninth-biggest domestic grosser of all time, and it should pass Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ($532m in 2016/2017) and The Dark Knight ($534m in 2008) early this weekend. Once that happens, it will be the second-biggest comic book superhero flick in North America behind The Avengers ($623m in 2012) and thus Chadwick Boseman will be able to call himself America’s Mightiest Hero. Now if you want to note inflation, it’s a slightly more complicated story.
As of today, with $512 million domestic, Black Panther is the eighth-biggest comic book adaptation (superhero or otherwise) behind Superman ($134m in 1978/$527m adjusted), The Dark Knight Rises ($448m in 2012/$528m adjusted), Spider-Man 2 ($373m in 2004/$552m adjusted), Batman ($251m in 1989/$577m adjusted), Spider-Man ($403m in 2002/$637m adjusted), The Dark Knight ($534m in 2008/$683m adjusted) and The Avengers ($623m in 2012/$704m adjusted).It will pass at least two of those by Sunday and at least four of them by the time it ends its theatrical run. Those last three biggies are harder mountains to climb.
Still, a lot fewer people go to the movies in 2018 than they did in 1989 or even 2008 (or even 2012), so a movie pulling down a $600 million+ domestic gross in the middle of Winter despite competition from VOD, Netflix, TV, YouTube and the like is a very impressive thing. In terms of worldwide grosses, it’s already the seventh-biggest comic book flick behind only the Dark Knight sequels, the Avengers flicks and the respective third Captain America and Iron Man movies. It should pass the Batman movies and Captain America: Civil War, along with possibly Iron Man 3 ($1.2b in 2013), but the last two Avengers flicks ($1.4b in 2015 and $1.5b in 2012) may be a bridge too far.
please lord let them beat avatar
I think it will beat Avatar because you figure this movie hasn’t even been out a full month and it’s already made a billion dollars movies are usually kept in the theater for three to three and a half months sometimes 4 if they’re very successful so shit might be hitting on 1.7
I wonder if people realize how IMPOSSIBLE it is that Black Panther beat out The Last Jedi in four-day domestic openings. BP had a February release, one of the worst if not the worst time for a blockbuster movie, as opposed to TLJ’s Christmas release. BP is the only movie among the Top 10 domestic opening weekend record holders to be released in February. The previous highest February opening weekend was Deadpool at $130 million, which BP beat by $70 million. BP also opened at 200 fewer theaters than TLJ, 4,020 to TLJ’s 4,232. In fact, BP opened at the fewest number of theaters among the Top 10 highest opening weekend record holders, and you won’t find a comparable number of theaters until number 18, Furious 7, which opened at 4,004 theaters.
In other words, BP had everything going against it compared to TLJ–bad release date, fewer theaters, lesser known characters from a smaller brand, not a main “storyline” movie like TLJ was, saddled with the conventional wisdom that Black-led movies are niche products without wider appeal. Yet BP went out, beat all projections, and smashed records. The scope of its achievement is staggering at every level.
@namo123 It was never my claim that BP wasn’t adequately marketed. I’m comparing it to TLJ because they’re somewhat comparable as movies from big franchises, both heavily marketed with deep pockets to back them up. I certainly wouldn’t compare BP commercially to, say, The Shape of Water because they’re on completely different scales. BP still had all these other disadvantages compared to TLJ, at least according to conventional thinking. As many commentors have pointed out conventional wisdom has been proven wrong, espceially the biggest and most damaging of them all–that audiences don’t want to see Black people lead on screen.
“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 FEBRUARY OPENING WEEKEND – $202,003,951 PREVIOUS RECORD HOLDER: Deadpool ($132,434,639)
LARGEST WINTER SEASON OPENING WEEKEND – $202,003,951 PREVIOUS RECORD HOLDER: Deadpool ($132,434,639)
LARGEST PRESIDENT’S DAY WEEKEND OPENING – $242,155,680 PREVIOUS RECORD HOLDER: Deadpool ($152,193,853)
LARGEST MONDAY – $40,151,729 PREVIOUS RECORD HOLDER: Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($40,109,742)
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 Panther has 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.
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).”
I wonder if people realize how IMPOSSIBLE it is that Black Panther beat out The Last Jedi in four-day domestic openings. BP had a February release, one of the worst if not the worst time for a blockbuster movie, as opposed to TLJ’s Christmas release. BP is the only movie among the Top 10 domestic opening weekend record holders to be released in February. The previous highest February opening weekend was Deadpool at $130 million, which BP beat by $70 million. BP also opened at 200 fewer theaters than TLJ, 4,020 to TLJ’s 4,232. In fact, BP opened at the fewest number of theaters among the Top 10 highest opening weekend record holders, and you won’t find a comparable number of theaters until number 18, Furious 7, which opened at 4,004 theaters.
In other words, BP had everything going against it compared to TLJ–bad release date, fewer theaters, lesser known characters from a smaller brand, not a main “storyline” movie like TLJ was, saddled with the conventional wisdom that Black-led movies are niche products without wider appeal. Yet BP went out, beat all projections, and smashed records. The scope of its achievement is staggering at every level.
And what about TFA, a.k.a. the movie that holds China’s record for biggest opening weekend? I guess that doesn’t exist anymore either, eh? If China needs to be “eased into” SW after that kind of success, then something has gone seriously wrong between then and now. Guess what it was.
I wonder what Chinese movie-goers have to see about this; can’t help but find it kinda patronizing on the westerners’ part that they assume “Chinese people don’t like Star Wars as a franchise” instead of the more reasonable “This particular movie sucked.”
I got this exceedingly amusing ask describing a member of the Chinese audience responding to this kind of condescension. I think “No shame, the white people” sums it up nicely. Chinese audiences turned out in unprecedented numbers to see TFA. They want to be entertained just like any other audience, and TLJ simply failed to do that without brand loyalty to lean on. To say that’s something wrong with the audience and not the product is the height of arrogance and entitlement, not to mention America-centric as fuck.
It is not a good move, career-wise, for JJ to come back for Star Wars: Episode IX. He broke and set so many records with The Force Awakens that there is an entire Wikipedia page devoted to the subject. At best the performance of IX will be somewhere between TLJ and TFA, maybe closer to TFA if things go well.
But let’s be real, barring a miracle JJ won’t outperform his prior record-smashing hit, and this is all the more the case after TLJ divided the fanbase so badly. If IX underperforms TLJ in accordance with the usual original-to-sequel
dropoff, RJ’s mistakes will be blamed on JJ and there is going to
be a torrent of thinkpieces about whether JJ is losing his touch. His detractors will have a field day and it will hurt his standing in the industry.
So why is he coming back? Why not sit back, rest on his TFA laurels, and leave RJ to wrap up the trilogy he had taken up, as everyone (including Daisy) was expecting? JJ is a hugely in-demand director and producer, all the more after his triumph in TFA. He has his pick of projects and must have had to clear so many things off his schedule to do IX. None of them was SW, to be sure, but he did SW. Realistically he can’t do better than he already has. So why?
In my opinion the only reason to come back that makes sense is because he’s dissatisfied with the way the trilogy went under RJ. He started this new trilogy and now he wants to end it, and he doesn’t want RJ to do it.
Some say he was executive director for TLJ and had to have approved of it, but the role of an executive director can vary a lot. For larger productions, executive producers may be involved more in financing, scheduling, and legal duties with little in the way of creative control.
I also think a big part of the reason for JJ’s return is Finn/John. JJ was so impressed by John as Moses in Attack the Block that he told John they would collaborate on a future project. Remember, this is a world famous director speaking to a very young actor in his early twenties, based on his appearance in a small British film in his late teens. That’s how impressed JJ was. He remained so impressed that he kept his promise years later and the role was a fucking lead in fucking Star Wars. JJ then went to bat for John through a seven-month audition process despite the rumored objections of LucasFilm President KK.
All of this tells me that JJ has something special in mind for Finn. Why else would he go to all that trouble to cast one of the best young actors in the world, knowing he would face racist backlash both from the studio and the fans? I respect JJ’s commitment to diversity, but you don’t become one of the biggest directors in the world by putting diversity over delivery. JJ knows talent, and John is one of the best in his age group. JJ wanted John because John was the actor who could bring his plans for Finn to fruition.
I think JJ is coming back despite the risks because he wants his vision, not RJ’s, to be the last word on the sequel trilogy. If he liked the way RJ was doing things he could have sat back and enjoyed the show, literally. I also think Finn is a huge part of JJ’s reasons, given the effort JJ took to cast the right man for the character. I certainly hope JJ treats him better than RJ did, and better than JJ himself did in TFA for that matter.
LMAO this is hilarious because JJ is on record saying that he loved Rian’s script and wished he got to direct it. You’re all so busy with your hate on for TLJ that you completely miss the irrefutable fact that the producers, crew, and execs at Disney were all THRILLED with the film and the direction it took. It’s totally valid to dislike the movie. Your grievances are not invalid. But putting these weird fantasies of what people involved with the project thought of it is some next level projection. Remember film producers/directors/executives = / = fans. Don’t forget they were excited enough with their October/November screenings of TLJ that they gave RJ his own trilogy. You don’t just hand over 3 massive-budget films over to a director if you’re not happy with what he’s put on the table in front of you.
JJ probably came back a) because Disney was desperate and threw money at him b) because he loves his space movies, and c) because getting to build off of a script he already admired would present a lot of fun challenges for him, because creatives love to build on each other’s work. Literally everyone on set and off loves Rian, speaks highly of Rian, and just because you guys are angry at some of his creative choices (and hell, there are definitely some I disagree with) doesn’t mean that he’s public enemy #1 to the people who make the damn movies. This is getting ridiculous. I see people on this godforsaken website whining about how Adam Driver’s poor feelings must be so hurt because someone made a meme of him shirtless, meanwhile, everyone is pulling out pitchforks and acting like Rian Johnson needs to be crucified and blacklisted from Hollywood for what he did. OP, your post is speculative fantasy. RJ wasn’t even supposed to direct the third movie either, the previous director, Colin Trevorrow, got the boot/departed due to creative differences between Disney and himself, as well as difficulties working within the tight requirements that Disney as a studio established for it’s Star Wars films (granted they fucked up on Solo apparently). JJ was a very safe bet to return in Trevorrow’s absence.
tl:dr JJ isn’t dissatisfied with anything & loved Rian’s script & just because you don’t like things doesn’t mean you can just put your feelings and emotions on other people.
You’re living in a fantasy world if you think people involved in these big hollywood projects are free to voice dissatisfaction with it. They are not only socially but often legally bound not to speak badly of a project, for obvious reasons. And still you get Mark openly talking about his disagreements with Johnson, about how the character isn’t Luke, and later apologizing for his critical comments without retracting them, saying he shouldn’t have said them in public. If that’s what’s coming out in public for the world to see, there’s a lot more going on below the surface.
What’s more, you can’t even keep your own version of events straight. Why would Disney throw money at JJ to get him to direct ix if they were happy with Johnson? And this was BEFORE Johnson’s movie turned out to be the largest sequel-to-sequel dropoff in history. (I was wrong in the op about sequel dropoff being normal, btw–in fact 57% of big studio sequels make MORE than their predecessors, which puts TLJ in an even starker light.)
I mean, I’m certainly not of the school of thought that my criticisms of TLJ need to be backed up by the people involved with the movie to be valid. Everyone could be perfectly happy with it and I’d still hate it. But that’s not what I’m seeing, and even you admit the execs thought JJ would be a better choice for IX while trying to insist everyone is happy with Johnson.
And yes, my op is highly speculative–which is why I tagged it ‘speculation.’ I am free to speculate on my blog and you are free to ignore it.
L.J.'s Obsessions 