And this is how “Black Panther’s” reign at the box office ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimpering performance from a sequel that no one cared about. “Pacific Rim: Uprising” did what Ava DuVernay’s “A Wrinkle in Time” or Lara Croft couldn’t do – it finally knocked “Black Panther” from the top of the box office. Even still, the Marvel Studios superhero film conquered more milestones, while the big new releases failed to live up to expectations.
First, we have to give proper credit to “Pacific Rim: Uprising.” With a weekend total of $28 million, the film didn’t exactly light up the box office, but still had a big enough weekend to become the #1 film. However, that’s about all the good news you can write about, what some would say, is a completely unnecessary robots-fighting-monsters sequel. With an estimated production budget of $150 million, combined with a very healthy advertising budget, a $28 million weekend is just not going to cut it.
But then again, everyone knew this film wasn’t made for domestic audiences. The previous film in the series, “Pacific Rim,” was made for an astronomical $190 million and only grossed $101.8 million in North America. The only reason audiences were subjected to a sequel was the film’s performance overseas, where it grossed an additional $309 million. So, while the first domestic weekend for ‘Uprising’ isn’t anything to be proud of, as long as the foreign markets come out to support the film, then Universal will be pleased. And with an estimated opening weekend of $120.5 million overseas (with half coming from China), Universal has to be moderately happy with the film’s performance.
However, with this domestic start, ‘Uprising’ is poised to perform worse than the first film. So any fans expecting a three-quel are sadly mistaken.
Now, that we got that bit of bittersweet news out of the way, the two big success stories for the weekend came in at #2 and #3, respectively. “Black Panther” didn’t have enough in its 6th weekend to beat ‘Pacific Rim,’ but the film did an incredible $16.7 million this weekend, for a modest sub-40% drop. We are truly running out of superlatives to throw at this film. It seems like every weekend, it’s the same old story – “Black Panther” makes a ton of money, more records fall. Well, guess what? “Black Panther” made a ton of money and more records did, in fact, fall.
The major milestone the film reached this weekend was overtaking its Marvel Studios brethren, “The Avengers,” to become the highest-grossing superhero film in domestic box office history – with a total of $630.9 million. For those keeping track, that means that ‘Panther’ is now the #5 highest grossing domestic film of all time. Not only that, with these modest week-to-week drops, you can expect “Black Panther” to pass “Jurassic World” and “Titanic” at #4 and #3, respectively. When all is said and done, it’s doubtful that “Black Panther” has enough legs to reach “Avatar,” so Marvel Studios will have to settle for an all-time ranking of #3 domestically. Not too shabby, at all.
Moving on, there was another big success story this weekend, and it’s the faith-based film, “I Can Only Imagine.” After a great opening weekend, landing at #3, the film had an incredibly small 19% drop, keeping its #3 position, with a second weekend of $13.8 million. Thanks to an additional 600+ screens, the film is capitalizing on the upcoming Easter holiday. With a budget of $7 million and a domestic total of $38.2 million, “I Can Only Imagine” is already set to turn a nice profit for Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate. And with Easter coming next weekend, it’s clear that “I Can Only Imagine” is set for another great weekend.
From there, the good news ends for the rest of the box office. This weekend saw the release of several notable films. First, coming in at #4 is the animated “Sherlock Gnomes”, with a first weekend of $10.3 million. After the moderate success of “Gnomeo and Juliet” in 2011, Paramount had to expect more from this sequel. Even with a more modest budget of $59 million, a $10.3 million start doesn’t bode well for the future.
“Paul, Apostle of Christ” and “Midnight Sun” were the only other debuts to land in the top 10, at #8 and #9, respectively. ‘Paul’ just couldn’t compete with “I Can Only Imagine” at attracting the religious crowd, and “Midnight Sun” was, well, just not good. If audiences wanted to see a teen romance, “Love, Simon” was the clear choice at #7.
Landing just outside the top 10, at #11, is Steven Soderbergh’s psychological thriller/horror film “Unsane,” with an estimated $3.8 million weekend. With a B- CinemaScore, it looks like people just weren’t happy with Soderbergh’s latest iPhone experiment. Some audiences weren’t happy with the low production value of the smartphone-filmed movie and the odd aspect ratio.
Let’s end on a bit of good news, shall we?
Wes Anderson’s “Isle of Dogs,” which has found the filmmaker battling a little controversy, debuted in 27 theaters. However, even with the low theater count, the film debuted with a very respectable $1.57 million. When you break it down in a “per theater” average, you get $58,000 – which is the best of 2018 so far, beating “Black Panther’s” $50,000 per theater. This is good news for Anderson and Fox Searchlight, as the film opens wider in the coming weeks.
Here’s a look at the top 10 for March 23 – 25:
1. Pacific Rim: Uprising — $28M (Debut)
2. Black Panther — $16.7M ($630.9M Overall)
3. I Can Only Imagine — $13.7M ($38.1M)
4. Sherlock Gnomes — $10.3M (Debut)
5. Tomb Raider — $10M ($41.3M)
6. A Wrinkle in Time — $8.1M ($73.9M)
7. Love, Simon — $7.9M ($23.7M)
8. Paul, Apostle of Christ — $4.95M (Debut)
9. Midnight Sun — $4.2M (Debut)
10. Game Night — $4.1M ($60.8M)