'Avengers: Infinity War' About 15% Bigger Than 'Black Panther' After A Week At the Box Office
Avengers: Infinity War is expected to earn over $100 million in its second weekend, making it one [...]
Avengers: Infinity War is expected to earn over $100 million in its second weekend, making it one of the highest-grossing second frames in movie history. While it topped Star Wars: The Force Awakens in its massive opening weekend, analysts are not expecting it to beat out The Force Awakens for the second-week record -- but they are expecting it to make more than Black Panther, which took in $111 million in its second weekend earlier this year.
Official projections have Infinity War making "between $100 million and $125 million" in its second week, which means it could underperform Black Panther and still come in at the low end of its estimates. That seems somewhat unlikely, if only because Infinity War has beat estimates at every stage so far.
After a week in theaters (counting Thursday night previews, rather than its "official" Friday opening), Infinity War has earned $338 million at the domestic box office -- about 15% higher than the $292 million Black Panther had earned during that same period in time.
While Black Panther's official opening-weekend tally was $202 million, it enjoyed a holiday weekend in its first week, so that when Monday was included in that opening frame the gross ballooned to $242 million. In that same time period, Infinity War earned about $40 million more at the domestic box office than Black Panther, and that disparity has remained fairly consistent.
By this time in its theatrical run, Black Panther had earned $292 million domestically, about $46 million less than Infinity War has.
Black Panther is currently the highest-grossing film of the year at the global box office, with $1.3 billion, and domestically with $689 million. In an unprecedented development for any franchise, Black Panther remained not only in theaters but in the top ten films at the box office even while Infinity War stormed the barricades last week. The film will be released on streaming platforms this coming Tuesday, and will likely still be in the top ten at the box office then.
Infinity War, meanwhile, has earned $857 million worldwide, putting it about $500 million behind Black Panther there (and $350 million or so behind domestically). Both of those are numbers that Infinity War will likely earn in the next few weeks as it is largely uncontested at the top of the box office until May 18, when Deadpool 2 comes.
If Infinity War does not top Black Panther by the time Deadpool 2 and Solo: A Star Wars Story hit theaters, it could be a much longer, slower road to #1 as the summer movie season kicks off and even the widest releases can only hang onto a significant screen count for short periods of time.
Still, the film is on pace to break $1 billion in record time, so $1.3 can't seem so far away.
Avengers: Infinity War is now in theaters. Other upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Ant-Man and the Wasp on July 6th, Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming on July 5, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.