‘Black Panther’ posts a record-setting box office opening for Marvel

Image: disney

Excited for Black Panther? So are we. Which is why we're rolling out obsessive coverage with Black Panther Week.  

We knew Black Panther would be a hit. And now, the box office figures are here to prove it.

The latest chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe opened with $242 million (technically, $241.96 million) earned over the weekend, including Monday's Presidents' Day holiday. That's enough to give King T'Challa's adventures in Wakanda a second-place finish among all other MCU movie openings.

SEE ALSO: Everything you need to know before watching 'Black Panther'

Black Panther's Friday-Saturday-Sunday opening accounts for $201.8 million. That's just enough to secure an all time top-five finish among Friday-Saturday-Sunday opening weekends, behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($248 million), Star Wars: The Last Jedi ($220 million), Jurassic World ($208.8 million), and The Avengers ($207.4 million).

The final four-day tally of $241.96 million inches Black Panther into the second-place position for best four-day opening of all time, behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($288.1 million). It comes in juuuuuust ahead of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which earned $241.57 million in its first four days.

At least part of the sensational Black Panther box office success is due to the fact that the movie dropped in February. The early months of the year are typically quiet ones for Hollywood, though risk-averse studios have more recently taken advantage of the period's empty release calendar to showcase unproven blockbusters.

In 2016, that was Deadpool. The R-rated superhero movie was in many ways a first for the genre, proving that an adults-only audience could carry a comic book adaptation to box office success. Until Black Panther came along, Deadpool's $132.4 million opening weekend made it the all time winner for February releases.

Black Panther was considered "risky" — from a studio exec's perspective, to be clear — for a different, and arguably more controversial, reason. Its predominantly black cast of stars and politicized themes fall outside the typical recipe of a successful Hollywood blockbuster, which tends to center around white male leads. 

What's more, the Black Panther character is among Marvel's lesser-known heroes on the world stage. Any fan of Marvel comics would call foul on that, but stand, say, Spider-Man, or Wolverine, or Captain America up against Black Panther and there's really no contest. He's just not as well known as those others.

This movie changes that. Buzz around Black Panther had been building for months. As the Feb. 16 release drew closer, all the usual background buzz about box office predictions grew on a weekly basis. At one point, Black Panther was on the road to a $150 million opening. Barely a day later, that number had climbed to $165 million.

To anyone paying attention, it was clear from not just the buzz but also the cultural movement building around the movie that it was going to be something special. Then, it screened for critics and reviews came out. That made things internet-official: Black Panther was a hit.

The numbers don't lie. A whopping $201.8 million in three days. $242 million in four. Another $184.6 million from releases in countries outside the U.S., with many first-place weekend finishes among them. The international box office doesn't even include Russia, Japan, and — crucially — China, all major foreign where a release is still to come.

After just four days, the total Black Panther box office is at $426.6 million. The question at this point isn't whether or not it will hit $1 billion; it's how quickly that milestone occurs. In case it wasn't yet clear, Black Panther is fully owning its moment.

UPDATED Feb. 19, 2018, 10:31 a.m. ET with revised estimates from Disney following the close of the Sunday box office.

UPDATED Feb. 20, 2018, 11:52 a.m. ET with finalized three-day and four-day domestic and international box office figures.

WATCH: 5 reasons why ‘Black Panther’ scored big with fans and critics

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‘Black Panther’ posts a record-setting box office opening for Marvel was originally posted by 31 T4T FanZone