Things We Saw Today: Black Panther Is Demolishing Box Office Records in Its Opening Weekend

Before it even hit theaters, Black Panther had already broken a number of advance ticket sale records at both Fandango and the Alamo Drafthouse cinemas. And now that it’s finally out, it’s breaking even more records in its opening weekend. At the local level, it’s now reportedly the highest-grossing movie ever at 33 AMC locations in the United States. And across the U.S., it’s slated to take in $205-210 million over the four-day Presidents Day weekend, which could put it ahead of The Avengers’ $207.4 million opening haul (not accounting for inflation). It will easily have the best February opening of all time, as well as the eighth-best opening day ever, and the weekend isn’t even over yet.

I never, never want to hear about how whitewashing is necessary for a movie’s success ever again.

• Wired has some more cool details from the Black Panther set and costume designs, from the shape of the flying ships to the Afro-Punk neighborhood in Golden City.
• Over at SYFY Wire, Brittany Vincent wrote about the women of The Orville. 
• Polygon has a write-up of all the Presidents’ Day deals on games, consoles, and gaming accessories.
• Breitbart published the absolute worst Black Panther review, because of course it did. I will link to the Hollywood Reporter story about the review, rather than the review itself, because I’m not sending that site traffic, but the title of the review was reportedly “Black Panther Review: The Movie’s Hero Is Trump, The Villain is Black Lives Matter.” So if you hear a racist parroting that idea at you, you’ll know where they picked it up.
• To coincide with the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story, Marvel and Disney are releasing a number of books and comics, including Lando: Double or Nothing and The Mighty Chewbacca: Forest of Fear. Learn all about them at Entertainment Weekly.

That’s all I saw out there today, TMSers. What’d you find?

(Featured image: Marvel Entertainment and Walt Disney Studios)

Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!

—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—