Alicia Vikander’s “Tomb Raider” finished second in its opening weekend in line with expectations with $23.5 million from 3,854 sites for Warner Bros. and MGM. Lionsgate-Roadside Attractions’ faith-based drama “I Can Only Imagine” outperformed forecasts with $17.1 million at 1,629 venues.

Disney’s second weekend of time-travel adventure “A Wrinkle in Time” followed in fourth with $16.6 million at 3,980 locations, lifting its 10-day total to $61.1 million. Fox’s launch of gay teen comedy-drama “Love, Simon” took fifth with $11.5 million at 2,402 venues.

“Black Panther” has become only the seventh title to pass the $600 million milestone at the North American box office, and is the second-fastest film to do so. It’s the fourth-highest fifth weekend of all time, and the first time a film has held the top spot for five weekends in a row since 2009’s “Avatar.”

The overall box office took in about $130 million, down 50 percent from the same weekend last year when Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” opened with $174.5 million. Thanks to “Black Panther,” the year-to-date box office is up 2 percent over the same period a year ago at $2.5 billion, according to comScore.

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Source: Reuters

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It is the fifth movie based in Disney’s Marvel Universe to hit the milestone.

The film stars Chadwick Boseman as the crime-fighting ruler of Wakanda, a fictional African nation with the most advanced technology on earth.

Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o, Michael B Jordan and Daniel Kaluuya play key roles, with The Hobbit star Martin Freeman as CIA agent Everett Ross.

The film has been widely praised as game-changing – including by Michelle Obama – for having a largely black cast and a black director, Ryan Coogler.

Box office analyst Jeff Bock told the New York Times: “I think about it like a wall crumbling. In terms of Black Panther, no studio can say again, ‘Oh, black movies don’t travel, overseas interest will be minimal.'”

Based on Disney’s estimate of ticket sales, the film passed the $1bn mark on the 26th day of its release.

Film information site IMDB says 32 movies have scored a box office billion, including 2012 James Bond offering Skyfall, the 2017 Beauty and the Beast reboot starring Emma Watson, and modern children’s classic Frozen.

A hero among heroes

Earlier this week UK figures showed Black Panther was out-selling fellow superhero outings Iron Man, Thor and Captain America, after grossing £35.4m in three weeks.

Of the 18 Marvel films released to date, only two had made more money in the UK at a comparable stage – 2015’s Avengers: Age Of Ultron (£40.4m) and 2012’s The Avengers (£40.3m).

Signs of the film’s success were good from the start – Black Panther more than doubled the amount it was predicted to take in the US and Canada over its opening weekend.

Last month, director Mr Coogler wrote a heartfelt letter thanking fans for their support.

“I am struggling to find the words to express my gratitude at this moment.” he wrote.

“Never in a million years did we imagine that you all would come out this strong.

“Thank you for giving our team of filmmakers the greatest gift: The opportunity to share this film, that we poured our hearts and souls into, with you.”

Patty Jenkins, the director who smashed records herself with 2017’s Wonder Woman, shared her delight at Black Panther’s “incredibly meaningful success”.

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Source: BBC

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In a defining moment for diversity and Hollywood, Disney’s and Marvel Studios’ Black Panther debuted to a record-shattering $242 million at the Presidents Day box office, according to updated estimates.

The bold superhero film passed up Star Wars: The Last Jedi ($241.6 million) to earn more in its first four days than any movie in history at the North American box office, save for Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($288.1 million), not adjusted for inflation. Black Panther also scored the biggest Monday in history with $40.2 million, besting Force Awakens‘ $40.1 million.

Black Panther‘s three-day haul of $201.8 million is the fifth- biggest domestic opening of all time, and the second-biggest for a superhero title behind fellow Marvel pic The Avengers ($207.4 million).

Throughout Presidents Day weekend, estimates for the film were continually revised upward.

Directed by Ryan Coogler, Black Panther is the first big-budget studio tentpole to feature virtually an all-black cast.

In the $200 million film, Chadwick Boseman stars as T’Challa/Black Panther alongside Lupita Nyong’o, Michael B. Jordan, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker and Andy Serkis. The story, described as a tale of black power and black pride in addition to its superhero themes, follows T’Challa as he is sworn in as king of Wakanda, a cloaked, technologically advanced nation in Africa that is home to the exotic metal vibranium, the source of Black Panther’s powers.

Black Panther was fueled by a diverse audience. According to comScore, 37 percent of ticket buyers were African American. Caucasians made up the next largest group (35 percent), followed by Hispanics (18 percent). That sort of demographic breakdown is unheard of for an all-audience event film. On average, African Americans make up about 15 percent of the audience for superhero fare.

Females also turned out in force to see Black Panther, heralded for its portrayal of strong women, making up 45 percent of all ticket buyers (that share is usually 35 to 40 percent on a superhero movie’s opening weekend).

Other records broken include those of the biggest opening for an African-American director, the top-scoring superhero film on Rotten Tomatoes (97 percent) and the biggest February bow, supplanting previous champ Deadpool, which took in $152.2 million over the four-day Presidents’ Day weekend in 2016.

Audiences bestowed Black Panther with an A+ CinemaScore (the only other Marvel title to earn the mark was Avengers).

Black Panther, which cost $200 million to make before marketing, also had a major push overseas, launching to $184.6 million through Monday for a global debut of $426.6 million. It opened in every major market save for Russia (Feb. 22), Japan (March 1) and China (March 9).

While Black Panther isn’t the sensation internationally that it is in the U.S., it came in ahead of expectations for an American film with a black cast.

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Source: hollywoodreporter.com

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“I loved this movie,” wrote the former First Lady on Monday.

“Because of you, young people will finally see superheroes that look like them on the big screen,” she said.

And it seems she’s not alone in loving the movie – with box office takings far higher than anticipated.

Revised studio estimates put its US and Canada grosses over the four-day President’s Day weekend at more than $235m (£168m).

That’s miles ahead of the $120m (£86m) the film was predicted to take over the same period as recently as last month.

Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins joined Mrs Obama in celebrating the film’s achievement.

Based on the Marvel comic book character, Black Panther revolves around the ruler of a fictional central African nation who moonlights as a costumed crime-fighter.

The film has drawn praise for having a black director – Creed’s Ryan Coogler – and a predominantly black cast, the majority of whom speak with African accents.

According to Fortune, Black Panther’s success is “dispelling industry concerns that a superhero movie revolving almost entirely around black characters [can] resonate with a general audience”.

“No studio can say again, ‘Oh, black movies don’t travel, overseas interest will be minimal,” box-office analyst Jeff Bock told the publication last week.

February is not generally used as a launching pad for “tentpole” blockbusters, which tend to be held back until after the Oscars and the end of “awards season”.

Recent years, however, have shown there is an appetite at this time of year for other kinds of material.

Deadpool, the last superhero film to open in North America over the President’s Day weekend, notched up an impressive $152m (£108m) when it debuted in 2016.

Black Panther, though, surely received an additional boost from positive buzz, rave reviews – it currently has a 97% rating on reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes – and huge social media awareness.

Last week, Variety reported that the film had become the most tweeted-about movie of the year so far, having amassed more than five million tweets on the social platform.

“I haven’t ever worked on a film where people were this excited about it before we even rolled a camera,” Coogler told the BBC earlier this month.

Other factors in the film’s success may include a crowd-funding initiative to raise funds to buy cinema tickets for children.

According to the GoFundMe website, the #BlackPantherChallenge has so far raised more than $400,000 (£285,000) to enable children to see the film in a movie theatre.

Actress Brie Larson, star of forthcoming Marvel release Captain Marvel, is among many to champion the scheme.

Black Panther’s stars, meanwhile, have their own theories on why the film has struck such a chord with audiences.

In a post on Instagram, actress Lupita Nyong’o paid tribute to her co-star Chadwick Boseman and his “quiet, confident, regal nature”.

“We celebrate BREAKING BOX OFFICE RECORDS with @blackpanther for many reasons, but chief among them is because we had you as our king,” she went on.

Britain’s Daniel Kaluuya, meanwhile, has suggested the film’s success lies in audiences seeing it in cinemas rather than using illegal means to access it.

“If you complain a lot about visibility and representation you have to pay, you have to support it when we do it,” he told 1Xtra presenter Dotty earlier this month.

“You have to support whatever you want to see. Ryan Coogler and us lot, we’ve been given support and we need the support back.”

Black Panther’s success extends beyond America’s borders. The film took $25.3m (£18m) in South Korean cinemas during its opening week – more than anywhere outside the US.

The fact a key action sequences was filmed in the Korean city of Busan is understood to have driven its popularity.

Closer to home, meanwhile, Black Panther has recorded the biggest February opening at the UK and Ireland box office.

Since arriving in British cinemas a week ago, the film has made £17.7m – which, according to The Guardian’s Charles Gant, is more than such previous Marvel releases as Thor and Ant-Man made over their entire UK runs.

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Source: BBC

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With an almost entirely black cast and a young African-American director, Ryan Coogler, the film has already won rave reviews for its stereotype-busting portrayal of Africa.

After all the hype, select audiences in African countries have got a sneak preview of the new blockbuster — and many agree it’s an important moment in popular culture.

“As I was watching the movie with friends, I remember we all felt part of history. This is beyond a movie. This is huge,” said Brian Barasa, a 29-year-old Kenyan who says he has loved comic books for as long as he can remember.

Set in the fictional African country of Wakanda, the film’s focus on black protagonists, stories and culture sets it clearly apart from other superhero movies.

But hero T’Challa, the king of Wakanda played by Chadwick Boseman, is not the first black superhero to hit the big screen.

Barasa, who co-founded the Nairobi Comic Convention in 2014, points out that was “Blade” — a vampire with human traits portrayed by actor Wesley Snipes in the trilogy between 1998 and 2004.

“But Blade was American,” said Barasa.

“In a conversation I had recently, somebody pointed out, ‘Blade had to walk in order for Black Panther to run’,” he noted.

 Cultural impact 
So far “Black Panther” has generated an enthusiastic response from communities in Kenya and Nigeria that are often stereotypically represented on screen.

Superhero fans also appear to appreciate the film’s visual qualities, the reproduction of costumes from the original comic and the characters’ accents.

“Usually in Hollywood, you’re just African. They will use a Nigerian actor with a Nigerian accent to play a Kenyan character or vice versa,” said Sope Aluko, one of five Nigerians in the film, at the Lagos premiere in Nigeria this week.

“We knew that we had a responsibility towards Africa and the black community in general while shooting this movie,” she added. “But I didn’t expect anything like this, all this enthusiasm coming from the black community.”

Commercially, the film looks set to break some box office records.

But for some, the potential cultural impact could be its most important achievement.

“It’s a very important statement to the world that Marvel Studio can have a movie entirely based on African characters,” said Kenyan actor Moses Odua at the African premiere in Kisumu, a town in the west of the country.

“That is so nice, it’s going to turn away some of the stereotypes we have on Africans.”

‘Afro-future’ 
In the film, Wakanda has skilfully exploited its mineral wealth to become the most developed and technologically advanced country in the world — a complete reverse of the run-of-mill portrayal of African nations as backward, poverty-stricken and disease-ridden.

Yet, at the same time, Wakanda is also anchored in African values of community and spirit.

“I like the Afro-future description of the continent and the mix of modern and tradition. They show regular Africans working with technology,” said Chiko Esire, 32, in Lagos.

Others took pride in the purely commercial aspect of “Black Panther”, which has already beaten “The Hunger Games” and “Beauty and the Beast” in pre-sales in the United States.

“I’m not a movie fanatic, I only watch maybe three or four movies a year,” said 27-year-old James Odede, who runs an IT firm.

“But I am excited about this one because it tries to illustrate that a movie that is predominantly black-cast can still sell and do well.”

Kenya film-maker Jinna Mutune, 29, believes the film has achieved its aim of showing African culture in a positive light but that more black-focused movies need to be produced.

“(It) is definitely filling a huge gap,” she said, but added: “We need more and more and more ‘Black Panthers’.”

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Source: AFP

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