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Michael B Jordan Black Panther.jpg

Box Office Report: Wakanda Be Starting Something

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | February 25, 2018 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | February 25, 2018 |


Michael B Jordan Black Panther.jpg

Look at Black Panther making all the money. Remember when some people were predicting it would struggle, or that it would simply never find its audience? Oh, bless. In its second week, it’s become only the fourth film ever to deliver over $100m at the domestic box office in week 2 (it made about $108m). After Jurassic World, it’s the second-fastest film to gross $400m in the US. Even with a 46.5% drop in box office attendance, it still pulled that off. Internationally, it also surpassed $700m gross, so there’s no way this won’t pass $1bn. If it isn’t in the top 5 or even top 3 highest grossing films of 2018, I will be stunned. Seriously, don’t fuck with Wakanda.

Elsewhere, other films did reasonably good business in their first weekend. New Line’s latest comedy, the R-rated Game Night, debuted at number 2 with around $16.6m. Audiences have enjoyed it, with 56% of the paying customers being women, and it looks set to do solid business overall. John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, the directors, are the current pair signed on to direct DC’s Flashpoint, so this will bring them a moment of relief. Really, once you’re onto your third director for a film that hasn’t even gone into production, surely you should be able to relax by now? DC continue to confuse me.

Arriving at number four is Annihilation, which made around $11m. That’s not great news for Paramount, but this was always a risky movie to release wide. It’s weird, cerebral, hard to categorize and not one you can make an easy elevator pitch for. The film is going straight to Netflix in most markets, including the UK. It’s sad that there doesn’t seem to be a wide audience for something like this - in part because the marketing savvy simply isn’t there - but I’d hazard a guess that this will do way better on Netflix than anywhere else. I mean, it has to be a better ad for the service than Mute, right?

And yes, Fifty Shades Freed fell to number 5 with a 60% cut in audience attendance and a $6.9m gross this week (nice). It’s made $89m domestically so far - nothing to sneeze at, but nowhere near the money it was expected to make. Yes, you can laugh now.

This coming week sees the release of the Eli Roth remake of Death Wish starring Bruce Willis - who asked for this? - and the Jennifer Lawrence spy thriller Red Sparrow. I highly doubt the former will put up much of a challenge for the top gun Black Panther, and with the way it’s playing, I’m not sure Red Sparrow can either. Obviously, they’ll play to different audiences and one has less of a reach due to its rating, but it’s certainly fascinating to see just how well Black Panther can continue to do. Disney will be sorry they ever doubted it. Well, right after rolling around in their big money pile for a little longer.

You can check out the rest of the weekend box office here.

What films did you watch this weekend? How much do you think Black Panther will make? What games do you play on game night? How weird is too weird when it comes to sci-fi? Are you still laughing at TK’s review of Fifty Shades Freed? Answers in the comments.