Disney-Marvel’s Black Panther is dominating the box office with an astounding $108 million (Dh396.6 million) at 4,020 North American locations — the second-highest second weekend ever behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Black Panther, starring Chadwick Boseman, has now grossed $400 million in North America in its first 10 days. Only The Force Awakens has reached that milestone faster. It’s also grossed $304 million internationally.
The superhero film, the 18th in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, declined only 46 per cent from its opening Friday-Sunday — underlining the film’s massive appeal among moviegoers. Star Wars: The Force Awakens set the second weekend record with $149 million in 2015, and Black Panther topped the second weekends of 2015’s Jurassic World at $106.6 million, and 2012’s The Avengers with $103 million.
Black Panther, directed by Ryan Coogler, has caught on with moviegoers this month in a way that few other titles have in Hollywood’s recent history — blowing past last month’s tracking that showed it would open in the $100 million to $120 million range. It’s notched an A+ Cinemascore — becoming only the second Marvel film to do so — and has dazzled critics with a 97 per cent “fresh” score on Rotten Tomatoes. The film also stars Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya and Letitia Wright.
ComScore’s PostTrack scores of the audience for the second weekend show support among moviegoers far above average with 69 per cent rating the film as “excellent” and another 23 per cent as “very good.” And it’s done so outside the traditional summer and holiday season corridors for blockbusters, noted Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst with comScore.
“Black Panther continues to elevate the month of February to summer-style blockbuster status with a second weekend that represents only the third time that a film has posted a $100 million plus weekend performance during the month (behind only its $202 million debut and Deadpool’s $132 million opening in 2016),” he said. “And with a North American cume [cumulative audience] through Sunday of $400 million, it is the highest grossing film ever released in the month after just 10 days in theatres beating the long-standing $370.3 million record held by 2004’s The Passion of The Christ.”
Warner Bros-New Line’s opening of R-rated Game Night, starring Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams, finished a distant second with $16.6 million from 3,488 locations. The film is directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, and follows Bateman and McAdams as couple whose regular game night suddenly turns into a murder mystery. Critics have given Game Night strong support, helping draw an 82 per cent “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
