Black Panther looking to tear up the box office this weekend with $165 million debut

According to box office predictions, the King of Wakanda will be stalking into the weekend with a cool $165 million domestic opening for Black Panther.

By many accounts, Black Panther could change blockbuster cinema forever. Like Wonder Woman, its success stands for something beyond just millions (or even billions) of dollars at the box office.

For the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it will be the first film with a black superhero lead and a predominantly black cast. Instead of your typical robust cities or whitewashing a character meant to be from Tibet, director Ryan Coogler will take us deep in the culture of Wakanda, where some of its most formidable inhabitants are women.

Further, the trailers promise plenty of action sequences, and we already have an amazing album to get us hyped.

So, with all that in mind and an amazing Rotten Tomatoes score, it comes as no surprise that Black Panther could unseat Deadpool with the biggest February opening of all time. According to early tracking, the box office estimate for Black Panther comes in at around $165 million, per The Hollywood Reporter.

And that’s just domestically.

Even if it falls short of that, it’ll still be in the top 10 for opening weekends in the superhero genre. But if hits $165, that will put in the top 5 behind both Avengers films, Captain America: Civil War (which practically felt like the third Avengers film anyway), Iron Man 3 and Batman v. Superman. However, if Black Panther can make more than that estimate, it will likely take out Batman v. Superman and make the top 5 exclusively Disney/Marvel films.

Outside of the superhero genre, $165 million won’t put Black Panther in the top 10 at all. However, the film’s representation will probably carry it a long way so that it’ll build steadily over the weeks, perhaps until it even hits a billion.

Either way, its projected opening weekend success is nothing to scoff it. Especially since that number jumped twice already since tracking first began.

Black Panther opens this Friday, Feb. 16.

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