‘Black Panther’ Box Office Debut: UK Box Office Report Feb 16-18th 2018

Posted on by Joseph Wade

After a brief sabbatical in our box office coverage that saw The Greatest Showman earn its place in the sun 2 weeks ago and Fifty Shades Freed top the chart last week, the Box Office Report is back for the debut of Marvel’s huge release Black Panther, this week’s number 1 film…

It is Marvel’s Black Panther that sits atop of the UK chart this weekend, grossing £17.7million from an extended five day opening period to earn it the title of best-out-of-the-blocks at the UK Box Office so far in 2018. The film, backed by the House of Mouse, is also sitting pretty as regards its comic book competition. Below is a chart of the opening weekend totals of every major comic book movie released since the beginning of 2016:

  1. Black Panther – Feb 2018 – £17.7million
  2. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Mar 2016 – £14.6million
  3. Captain America: Civil War – Apr 2016 – £14.5million
  4. Deadpool – Feb 2016 – £13.7million
  5. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – Apr 2017 – £13.1million
  6. Thor: Ragnarok – Oct 2017 – £12.4million
  7. Logan – Mar 2017 – £11.9million
  8. Suicide Squad – Aug 2016 – £11.3million
  9. Spider-Man: Homecoming – July 2017 – £9.4million
  10. Doctor Strange – Oct 2016 – £9.3million
  11. Kingsman: The Golden Circle – Sept 2017 – £8.5million
  12. LEGO Batman – Feb 2017 – £7.9million
  13. X-Men: Apocalypse – May 2016 – £7.4million
  14. Justice League – Nov 2017 – £7.3million
  15. Wonder Woman – May 2017 – £6.2million

What the chart doesn’t reveal is that most of the releases featured were five day opening weekend totals too, making Black Panther’s accomplishments even more phenomenal.

You’d actually have to go back to April 2015 and Avengers: Age of Ultron before finding a comic book movie opening that out-grosses Black Panther. That film, which was the 2nd movie of the central Avengers franchise, grossed £18million in its opening weekend, and is the only superhero film in history to outperform the newcomer upon its debut, meaning that Black Panther is currently more of a financial hit than the likes of The Avengers, every Avengers solo movie and The Dark Knight.

The film has now officially made more money in its opening weekend than the entire box office runs of Ant-Man, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger and even Iron Man.

In terms of overall UK grosses in 2018 so far, Black Panther currently sits comfortably in the top 5, with the chart looking like this (bear in mind that Black Panther had been on the market for only 3 days when these figures were taken):

  1. Darkest Hour – weeks on release: 6 – total: £21.9million
  2. Black Panther – 1 – £17.7million
  3. Coco – 4 – £15.3million
  4. Fifty Shades Freed – 2 – £13.4million
  5. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – 6 – £11.4million

In the North American box office market, the figures are even more incredible, with Forbes placing the weekend total at $201.8million (£144.2million) for Friday to Sunday and $242million (£172.9million) for the full four-day President’s Day weekend between Friday and Monday. This total has smashed the previous February opening weekend record set by Deadpool in 2016 of $132million Friday-Sunday and $152million Friday-Monday.

In the case of February opening weekends, Black Panther has out-performed Deadpool by 52% and previous record holder Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) by 148%.

If you are to consider The Avengers (2012) a sequel, as opposed to the standalone so many box office experts consider it to be, then Black Panther is the new record holder for highest grossing non-sequel/prequel in the history of cinema, even when adjusted for inflation.

It’s also earned the distinction of grossing the highest amount of any solo superhero movie ever in its opening weekend, has officially earned more in its Friday-Sunday period than any film released over a holiday weekend in history, has claimed the record of highest total weekend gross of any film released by a non-white male, has earned the largest Monday-only gross in history, and is now the fifth highest grossing opening weekend in North American box office history.

By mid-week, Black Panther will have surpassed the cumulative North American grosses of the likes of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Batman and every entry in the X-Men franchise barring Deadpool.

The worldwide gross for the movie sits at $404million after just four days, with the film yet to open in the huge markets of Japan, Russia and China. This places the film above the all-time grosses of popular titles such as: Mission: Impossible III, Twilight, Star Trek (2009), Mad Max: Fury Road and Toy Story.



Here are the top 15 grossing films in the UK this past weekend:

  1. Black Panther – weeks on release: 1 – weekend: £17,700,000 – total: £17,700,000
  2. Fifty Shades Freed – 2- £2,730,197 – £13,361,739
  3. The Shape of Water – 1 – £2,466,217 – £2,466,217
  4. The Greatest Showman – 8 – £1,927,367 – £30,414,668
  5. Coco – 5 – £1,400,000 – £15,256,165
  6. Early Man – 4 – £1,154,533 – £8,540,993
  7. Darkest Hour – 6 – £553,149 – £21,940,828
  8. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle – 9 – £456,414 – £37,197,072
  9. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – 6 – £408,480 – £11,366,703
  10. Maze Runner: The Death Cure – 4 – £326,033 – £6,389,338
  11. Father Figures – 1 – £250,464 – £250,464
  12. Den of Thieves – 3 – £243,111 – £2,790,151
  13. Paddington 2 – 15 – £205,479 – £42,453,589
  14. The Post – 5 – £205,318 – £8,839,133
  15. Phantom Thread – 3 – £186,105 – £2,148,930

Father Figures, the new comedy from Warner Bros starring Owen Wilson and Ed Helms is the only debut film not to make the top 5 this week, sitting incredibly low at number 11. Its £250,464 gross is likely to signal insurmountable failure for the film, which was made for an estimated $25million and earned less than $23million in North America late last year.

2018 BAFTA award winning director Guillermo Del Toro’s nominated fantasy film The Shape of Water earned a much more respectable £2,466,217 in its opening weekend, out-grossing many of its Oscar-contending contemporaries released this year, each of which opened as follows:

  1. Darkest Hour – Jan 2018 – £4.1million
  2. The Shape of Water – Feb 2018 £2.5million
  3. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – Jan 2018 – £2.4million
  4. The Post – Jan 2018 – £2.2million
  5. Phantom Thread – Feb 2018 – £250,000

And finally…

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, the surprise hit of late 2017, seems to finally be slowing down having earned just over £450,000 this past weekend to send its total £37.2million, the 7th highest in the UK for a film released in the 2017 calendar year. It would need to gross another £2million in the remainder of its run to out-gross Marvel’s most-successful 2017 release Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and that does seem unlikely at this stage, though the film still managed an outstanding run. As time progresses, it may actually be The Greatest Showman that sneaks up into the 2017 top 5, as it continues to hold onto 7-figure takings each weekend having already accumulated £30.5million.

So that does it for this week’s UK Box Office Report. Make sure to subscribe to us on YouTube to gain access to our weekly box office chart top 5 videos each and every Tuesday (a whole day earlier than these reports!) And please bookmark our homepage, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and leave a comment below with your thoughts!



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