'Black Panther' Passes 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' at Box Office

"Black Panther" is making box office history this weekend as its opening weekend estimates have risen to $192 million over three days and a whopping $218-222 million over the four-day President's Day weekend.

If that result holds, "Black Panther" will pass "Avengers: Age of Ultron" for the fifth-highest box office opening of all-time, joining a top-five list that includes "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," "Star Wars: The Last Jedi," "Jurassic World" and "The Avengers."

Although the opening of "Avengers: Infinity War" in May is expected to push "Black Panther" out of the top five, it's still an enormous moment not just for Marvel Studios, but for a rising trend of diverse filmmaking that has seen films like "Straight Outta Compton," "Moonlight," "Get Out" and "Wonder Woman" find critical and commercial success. In fact, if "Black Panther" can push the needle a bit more over Sunday and Monday, it could pass the $226 million four-day start set by the first "Avengers" back in 2012, making it the biggest four-day start ever for a superhero movie.

Also Read: 'Black Panther' Film Review: Supporting Players Steal Show in Marvel's Excellent African Adventure

The full list of records "Black Panther" has broken is yet to be determined, but it already has some big ones under its belt. It has shattered the record for biggest February opening, previously held by "Deadpool" with $152 million. It has the biggest pre-summer opening weekend of all-time, beating the $174 million made last year by "Beauty and the Beast." That $174 million mark was also the opening posted by "Iron Man 3" in 2013, making "Black Panther" the highest grossing superhero movie with a single hero. It also has the biggest start for a film with a black director, nearly doubling the $98.8 million start earned by F. Gary Gray's "The Fate of the Furious" last year.

Critically, "Black Panther" has set marks, becoming the highest rated superhero film of all time on Rotten Tomatoes with a 97 percent score. It is also only the second Marvel film ever to earn the highest mark in CinemaScore audiences polls, joining "The Avengers" as one of only two films to earn an A+. Meanwhile, Fandango is reporting it is showing a significantly higher rate of repeat customers for "Black Panther" than it has seen for other superhero movies on an opening weekend.

Also Read: 'Black Panther': 5 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Marvel's Latest Big-Screen Hero (Video)

As for the rest of the box office charts, second place will be taken by Sony's "Peter Rabbit," which is currently just barely ahead of Universal's "Fifty Shades Freed" but is expected to pull away on Monday as it gets a boost from family audiences with kids on school break. The Beatrix Potter adaptation is estimated to make $17.25 million -- down just 31 percent from its $25 million opening -- with a four-day total of $22.1 million. That will bring the film's total to $53 million.

"Fifty Shades Freed" will take third place with an $18.9 million four-day total, down 55 percent from its $38.5 million opening, bringing its domestic cume to $78 million and its global cume to $268.9 million. "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle" is in fourth with $10 million over four days, bringing its total $379.6 million and making it the second-highest grossing film in Sony history behind only "Spider-Man." "15:17 to Paris" completes the top five with $9 million over four days, which would give it a $26 million total.

Also Read: How 'Black Panther' Might Bust the Myth That Black-Led Blockbusters Don't Play Overseas

In sixth is Fox's "The Greatest Showman," finally falling out of the top five in its ninth weekend in theaters, but not before it passes fellow musical "La La Land" on the domestic charts with an estimated $6 million weekend haul, bringing its domestic cume to $155 million compared to $151 million for "La La Land."

Following "Greatest Showman" is one of two new releases this weekend, Lionsgate/Aardman's "Early Man." The latest stop-motion animated offering from the "Wallace & Gromit" studio is looking at a four-day total of $4.1 million from 2,494 screens, slightly below the $5-7 million projections set by independent trackers. The other new release is Pure Flix's "Samson," which opened on 1,249 screens and finished outside the Top 10 with an estimated $2.3 million.

More to come...

Letitia Wright Is 'Black Panther's' Breakout Star - Here's Where You've Seen Her Before (Photos)

"Black Panther" is zooming toward an inevitably, huge opening this weekend, and one of the brightest stars contributing to that success is breakout star Letitia Wright. Wright plays Shuri, the technological wizard who develops Wakanda's incredible high-tech gadgets who also happens to be sister of the title character. So before you see the movie, get to know Wright before everyone starts talking about her.
Marvel
Wright, 24, was born in Guyana, but moved to London when she was 7. She was inspired to act after seeing the 2006 film "Akeelah and the Bee," which she saw as a rare, positive representation of black people on screen. "If it's a character with flaws, great, but not just negative stigma all the time. We need to change things here," she told The Guardian in 2015.
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Wright's acting career first took off on British TV starting with roles on the long-running medical drama "Holby City" and the crime drama "Top Boy" in 2011. Other TV roles since then include episodes of "Doctor Who," "Humans," and the LGBT-focused dramas "Cucumber" and "Banana."
E4
Wright's first major film role was in Michael Caton-Jones's film "Urban Hymn" from 2015, as a teenager with a beautiful singing voice who pursues music as a way of escaping her troubled home life. At the time, Caton-Jones told The Guardian "I've not felt like this about someone since Leonardo" (DiCaprio, who Caton-Jones directed in 1993's "This Boy's Life").

"I've had plenty of really good actors, but I just go on my instinct," Caton-Jones said. "My instinct is she can be as big as she wants. Letitia is just gobsmackingly brilliant. The camera loves her. She has an emotional honesty."
Level 33 Entertainment
In between film roles, Wright starred in the West End production of "Eclipsed," a play written by her eventual "Black Panther" co-star Danai Gurira. Wright plays one of several Liberian women, stripped of their names and identities, living within the compound of a military leader fighting a rebellion against the Liberian president. Notably, in the Broadway production of "Eclipsed" Wright's role was played by another future "Black Panther" co-star, Lupita Nyong'o.
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Wright is also openly religious, sharing her faith on social media and in interviews. She recently took a seven month hiatus from acting and even stepped away from a movie role opposite Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning, to focus on her faith. I remember God was like, to me, Give up the job," she told Vanity Fair in 2017. "I can give you more than that; I just need you right now. Give up the job."
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When she resumed acting, Wright landed a part on the sci-fi series "Humans," playing a human teen who belongs to a subgroup of people who like to emulate and pretend to be synths (the show's term for androids).
Channel 4/AMC
Wright was also the star of "Black Museum," the mindbending fourth season finale of "Black Mirror." The fan-favorite episode, loaded with callbacks to previous episodes in the series, sees Wright as a revenge-driven young woman who finally confronts the man who killed and tortured her father.
Netflix
Wright has a deep connection with her "Black Panther" cast. She told Variety that it felt "ordained" that she would one day play Chadwick Boseman's sister in a film. "I really, really feel like this is just a God thing," Wright said. "Even before I met him, I knew that he was going to play my brother. I just knew that we would connect because of the type of actor he is as well. He's a person of the spirit, a like soul. Very grounded, down-to-earth, humble."
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Wright told Vanity Fair that she, Gurira and Nyong'o would get into rap battles on set, and she would always win. She also has some ideas about the future of her Marvel character Shuri (she'll appear in "Avengers: Infinity War"). She imagined a scenario in which she teases Peter Parker and Tony Stark for their outdated tech and even plots to improve the Iron Man suit behind Tony's back.
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Wright's next role will be as Reb in Steven Spielberg's adaptation of "Ready Player One." "He's a master at what he does, and he's a normal person. He just wants to get a good film going." Wright said in an interview.
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Wright stars as the tech-savvy princess Shuri in "Black Panther" and will next be seen in Steven Spielberg's "Ready Player One"

"Black Panther" is zooming toward an inevitably, huge opening this weekend, and one of the brightest stars contributing to that success is breakout star Letitia Wright. Wright plays Shuri, the technological wizard who develops Wakanda's incredible high-tech gadgets who also happens to be sister of the title character. So before you see the movie, get to know Wright before everyone starts talking about her.

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Letitia Wright Is 'Black Panther's' Breakout Star - Here's Where You've Seen Her Before (Photos)

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