Black Panther Tops Star Wars: The Last Jedi in Historic Opening Weekend

Black Panther has topped Star Wars: The Last Jedi, becoming the second-highest grossing four-day domestic opening of all time by taking in $242 million. The film, while grossing $400,000 more than the most recent Star Wars film, did not overtake the previous champion Star Wars: The Force Awakens’s $288.1 million for the largest four-day opening. However, Black Panther did take the prize for the highest Monday gross with $40.2 million, edging out The Force Awakens’ $40.1 million.

Disney, per Variety, revealed that Black Panther’s international gross reached $184.6 million, bringing the worldwide total to $426.6 million, with South Korea and the United Kingdom leading non-U.S. countries with $27.1 million and $26.7 million, respectively.

The budget for the Marvel superhero film was an estimated $200 million, and the film was originally projected to rake in $100 to $150 million, though that clearly was an underestimate. The Ryan Coogler-directed film starring Chadwick Boseman has become the biggest cultural phenomenon of the year so far and has the highest-ever Presidents’ Day weekend opening, beating out 2016’s Deadpool.

The film has the fifth-highest three-day debut gross of all time, following behind only The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, Jurassic World and The Avengers.

Read our review of Black Panther right here, and for goodness’ sake, go see the thing.