With an estimated $80 million on Friday (including that $28 million from Thursday previews), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is on pace for around a $180 million weekend. This currently puts it behind other 2022 Marvel release Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness which opened to over $187 million back in May. Some box office prognosticator’s (myself included) believe the film can still surpass that opening as walk up business for Wakanda Forever is supposed to be strong on Saturday and Sunday.
It does seem a shorter run time would have helped this one pull in more in its opening weekend, but after seeing the film on Thursday, I can say that I don’t think there was a second wasted in this one. And even though a headlining, record breaking opening weekend would be nice, sometimes you have to play the long game and with no big “event” type releases until December 16 when Avatar: The Way of Water comes out (although for me, Violent Night on December 2 is an event release as I can not wait to see that one) you can expect Wakanda Forever to play solidly for the next month.
Coming in second this weekend is Black Adam, which as expected lost a large chunk of its audience to the Panther and is expected to finish in the $7-$11 million range. While Ticket To Paradise continues to be a solid word of mouth hit pulling in close to $7 million for the weekend. Speaking of word of mouth hits, or in this case, singing… of mouth, Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile continues its solid run at the box office with another $3-4 million. Oh, and speaking once more of a word of mouth hit, or in this case, smile… of mouth, Smile continues to pull in solid numbers even post Halloween with an estimated 3 day take around $2 million as it officially crosses the $100 million mark at the domestic box office.
Were you one of the masses that made it to theaters this weekend to see Black Panther: Wakanda Forever? Let us know what you thought in the comments section and don’t forget to check back tomorrow when we have a full run down of this weekend’s box office numbers.