By the end of this weekend, the box office will have two kings. One will be the new robot-monster-smash flick PACIFIC RIM UPRISING, which will take the top spot away from the five-week champ, BLACK PANTHER. The second will go to PANTHER, as the movie will officially take the throne away from THE AVENGERS to become the highest-grossing comic book movie of all time. Just let that last bit sink in for a minute.
According to the current weekend projections, UPRISING will win the top spot with a decent $26 million total, which is down from the weekend total of the first PACIFIC RIM ($37 million). Though that may seem low for a movie of this size, Universal is playing the international game here, and the movie is doing major business overseas. The movie is set to make $120 million internationally this weekend, with $65 million coming from China, giving the movie a healthy opening in the ballpark of $150 million globally.
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Now to BLACK PANTHER. We’ve been talking about this movie for six weeks, and even as it drops to number two it’s making massive leaps. It’s Friday total of $4 million brings it up to $618 million, with a weekend total of $16 million on the horizon. That means that even by Saturday, PANTHER will pass the $623 million total of THE AVENGERS to become the biggest comic book movie ever at the domestic box office with $630 million. This will place the movie in the number five slot, with JURASSIC WORLD, TITANIC, AVATAR and STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS ahead of it. At this rate, PANTHER hitting the number three spot is quite likely.
Coming in at number three is the Christian flick I CAN ONLY IMAGINE, which continues its surprising run with a $14 million second weekend, down from $17 million last weekend. At number four is animated movie SHERLOCK GNOMES with $12 million, which is better than a movie called SHERLOCK GNOMES should be able to do. Rounding out the top five is TOMB RAIDER, which is set to make about $9 million.
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Even with UPRISING taking the top spot, the most impressive feat of the weekend is PANTHER hitting that massive milestone. As the movie opened big and continued to do well I still held out reservations the movie would pass AVENGERS. But as the movie trounced other anticipated movies like A WRINKLE IN TIME and TOMB RAIDER, I began to truly see the legs on this movie. Audiences cannot get enough, and now we have a new king of comic book movies. Bow down, subjects!