‘Black Panther’ Shatters Box Office Records With $218 Million Debut

Black Panther, Marvel Studio’s first black superhero film, was on track for a $218 million domestic debut over the four-day President’s Day weekend, giving it the fifth-biggest opening of all time. The film broke records across the board, claiming the biggest domestic opening ever for a film released in February and the second biggest debut for a Marvel Studios film. Starring Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, and Danai Gurira, Daniel Kaluuya, and Letitia Wright, Black Panther also clinched the biggest global debut ever for a film with a predominantly black cast, earning a whopping $169 million internationally. The only other films brave enough to open on the same weekend as Black Panther, the animated family film Early Man and Pure Flix’s Samson, failed to break into the top three this weekend, earning $4 million and $2 million, respectively. Holdovers Peter Rabbit and Fifty Shades Freed took second and third place, with $17.3 million and $16.9 million.