‘Black Panther’ slashed past the half-billion mark this weekend and retained the crown of the #1 movie at the domestic weekend box office. With a cumulative earning of $502.1 million, it now ranks as the second highest grossing Marvel Studios film, trailing only behind the first ‘Avengers’ ($623M). But ‘Black Panther’ is only in its third weekend, so it is possible that it could top that. With $65.7M this weekend, this also marks the third best third weekend ever, behind ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ ($90.2M) and ‘Avatar’ ($68.5M). ‘Black Panther’ now ranks as the tenth biggest movie of all time. And it’s the fastest a film has reached the $500M mark after ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ and ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’. By the end of next weekend, ‘Black Panther’ should cross the one billion mark internationally.
The Francis Lawrence-directed, Jennifer Lawrence-starring spy thriller ‘Red Sparrow’ seriously underperformed, taking in $17M. This is better than Jennifer Lawrence’s previous films ‘mother!’ and ‘Passengers’, though. It’s actually more than double what ‘mother!’ made in its opening weekend. This film was bumped from its original fall release date to avoid overlapping with ‘mother!’. It’s not really clear if it was worth it. Critics don’t particularly care for ‘Red Sparrow’, which has a 51% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences were more generous, granting it a “B” CinemaScore. One of the biggest criticism appears to be that the film is too long (two hours and 19 minutes). The other is that audiences have seen this type of film already, with last summer’s tepid ‘Atomic Blonde’.
‘Red Sparrow’ topped the Bruce Willis-starring ‘Death Wish’ which made $13M. The violent subject matter turned many away, in light of the Parkland shootings. Audiences that did show up liked it, giving it a “B+” CinemaScore. Critics hated it, giving it a 15% Rotten Tomatoes score. But this movie was made for a measly $30M, so it should have no problem turning a profit, especially once foreign markets are tallied in. More than half the audience for ‘Death Wish’ was male, while the case was the opposite for ‘Red Sparrow’.
Here’s the Top Five:
- Black Panther (Disney) – $65.7M
- Red Sparrow (20th Century Fox) – $17M
- Death Wish (MGM) – $13M
- Game Night (New Line/Warner Brothers) – $10.7M
- Peter Rabbit (Sony) – $10M
‘Game Night’ directors John Francis Daly and Jonathan M. Goldstein are set to direct the DC Comics ‘Flash’ movie, so that may have given this adult-skewing comedy an edge this weekend.
Next weekend could see a major shakeup with the release of Disney’s ‘A Wrinkle in Time’. That all-star film, directed by Ava DuVernay, should actually knock ‘Black Panther’ from the top spot. There are a few smaller movies opening that have a shot at the top five as well, horror movie ‘The Strangers: Prey at Night’, the self-explanatory ‘The Hurricane Heist’ and Nash Edgerton’s buzzy ‘Gringo’ starring Daniel Oyelowo from ‘Black Panther’ and last year’s breakout ‘Get Out’.
Check back to see how things pan out.
Source: Deadline
