Weekend Wrap-Up: Black Panther Hits Half a Billion Dollars
March 6, 2018
Black Panther keeps beating expectations to the point where it is my fault for not being overly optimistic. This past weekend, it earned $66.31 million, becoming the third fastest film to reach $500 million. The two new releases weren’t bad either. Red Sparrow earned second place while Death Wish wasn’t that far behind in third. Overall, the box office still fell 24% from last weekend, earning $147 million. It was also down from this week last year last year by a similar 22% margin. Year-to-date, 2018’s lead shrunk by almost exactly $10 million, but we still have a $220 million / 12% lead over 2017 at $2.09 billion to $1.87 billion. That lead will shrink dramatically over the next few weeks.
Black Panther added $66.31 million over the weekend, for a running tally of $501.71 million after just 17 days of release. It is the fastest non-Star Wars film to reach $500 million at the domestic box office. At this pace, the film will have no trouble reaching $650 million domestically and it could get to $1.3 billion worldwide, depending on how it does in China. Then again, if it bombs in China, it could just convince Disney to stop paying attention to that market.
Red Sparrow opened in a distant second place with $16.85 million. Its reviews are mixed and it only managed a B from CinemaScore, which will likely result in merely average legs. The film cost $69 million to make, so this isn’t a good result. However, the film has a deal with Netflix for international rights, so it is hard to tell if this is good enough to be profitable.
Death Wish pulled in $13.01 million during its opening weekend. Terrible reviews won’t help its legs, although its B plus from CinemaScore is better than its critical reception. I think it will break even sometime on the home market. In fact, I think this will be one of those films that a certain segment of the population will watch repeatedly on Netflix.
Game Night fell only 39% during its second weekend of release, earning $10.41 million for a two-week total of $33.24 million. This is almost as much as it cost to make. It won’t do as well internationally, as R-rated comedies almost never translate into other languages, but unless it cost more to advertise than it did to make, it will do well enough to break even early in its home market run.
Peter Rabbit was right behind with $10.01 million, giving it $84.07 million after four weeks of release. It will have no problem getting to $100 million, which is good news for Sony, as they haven’t had a lot of success in the past few years.
Annihilation fell to sixth place with $5.61 million, but this is down just 49%, which is a good result in this day and age. Unfortunately, like so many other Paramount releases, it had a weak start. Every Day fell to 10th place with $1.57 million for a two-week total of $5.27 million.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle continues its trek to $400 million with $4.44 million over the weekend for a total of $393.14 million after 11 weeks of release. It will take a couple of weeks to get to $400 million, but there’s almost no chance it won’t get there.
- Red Sparrow Comparisons
- Death Wish Comparisons
Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Black Panther, Annihilation, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Red Sparrow, Peter Rabbit, Game Night, Death Wish, Every Day, Star Wars