Black Panther (our review here) opens at midnight tonight, and some of us have been waiting a long time for this. Excitement is high, as evidenced by all the records the movie has already broken and the ones it’s poised to break. We’d already heard it’s likely to beat Deadpool‘s February record and gross an estimated $165 million over Presidents Day weekend. Black Panther also has the highest Rotten Tomatoes rating (97%) of all the Marvel Cinematic Universe films. The review which cost it a perfect 100% rating wasn’t even a bad review, but Rotten Tomatoes aggregated the three star rating as “rotten.”
The film just broke another record, posting the biggest opening day total so far this year in the UK box office by making £2.67 million in its first day in one of the first three markets to open the film (UK, Hong Kong, and Taiwan). The all-time opening day record in the UK is still held by Star Wars: The Force Awakens (£9.68 million).
All signs point to a successful opening weekend. Along with the aforementioned box office estimates, Black Panther has also garnered more Imax ticket pre-sales than any other Marvel film and it’s the most-tweeted about movie of 2018 so far. It’s good to be the king.
We also have a new clip in which T’Challa / Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) battles Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) on a Hyperloop while Shuri (Letitia Wright) offers her king some assistance. It should be noted this footage may have come from an early press screening with unfinished CGI.
(Via IGN, Screen Daily, Inverse, Screen Rant, and Variety)