Black is the new black

Black Panther is not only the best superhero movie ever made, it is also the most successful. More or less. This just goes to show that Obama really did heal the racial divide in the United States and end global racism.

By the time the four-day President’s Day holiday stretch ends, Black Panther will have surpassed many of Marvel’s mightiest on the all-time domestic B.O. openers chart. Black Panther is now looking at the 6th best opening of all-time on a 3-day-basis with an estimated $187.6M per industry projections and a mind-blowing $216M over four days.

How much do moviegoers love Black Panther? The Ryan Coogler-directed movie earned an A+ CinemaScore tonight, Marvel’s second after 2012’s The Avengers.

On the 3-day all-time chart, Black Panther is just above Captain America: Civil War ($179.1M). Back in January Fandango reported that out of the gate in its first 24 hours, Black Panther outstripped the advance tickets sales of Civil War, however, analysts didn’t rush to comp the Wakanda superhero to Marvel’s other titles. They just couldn’t believe at the time how massive this was going to be. While Black Panther is under Avengers: Age of Ultron on the 3-day all-time openers list  ($191.2M), the pic is beating the sequel’s four-day run ($204.4M). Black Panther has already left Disney’s Beauty and the Beast ($174.7M) and WB/DC’s Batman v. Superman ($166M) in the dust to become the biggest pre-summer opener of all-time.

This is excellent news. Given the similarly unprecedented success of Wonder Woman, Marvel is clearly going to be doubling down, and doubling down again, on even more diversity.

The door to the disruption of the comics industry just opened that much wider.

It’s going to be amusing to read the revisionist reviews when all the critics finally sober up. I expect we will see an arc similar to the one we see after every Star Wars movie.

  1. OMG! It’s the BEST since EMPIRE!
  2. Okay, maybe we got a little carried away. But it’s still really good!
  3. Well, I mean, it’s all right.
  4. Actually, there are a lot of things that don’t make any sense.
  5. And are pretty lame, come to think of it.
  6. This movie sucks.
  7. Now, what was the second one called? No, the second of the new ones, not the prequels.

You know it’s going to happen. The whispers about the first major plot holes have already begun. And speaking of Star Wars movies, as of Day 62, The Last Jedi had officially fallen $300 million behind its predecessor in domestic box office.

TFA: Day 63 $917.8
TLJ: Day 63 $617.4

Both my December 19th prediction and my January 12th projection of $624 million domestic are looking pretty good. Including the foreign box office, TLJ is currently $745.8 million short. Convergence is expensive.