New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Sure, a couple of new movies opened, but it's still all about Black Panther.

After debuting with an out-of-this-world $202 million last weekend (and $242.2 over four days), Black Panther did have a bit of a heady decline this weekend, although its 62% decrease from last Friday does factor in Thursday night sneak previews for opening day. If we remove that from the equation, the actual Friday-to-Friday drop is 43%, and there's not much wrong with that. Whenever we have large openings at this scale, the second weekend drop is usually significant.

Over the course of this weekend, the final result is likely to be closer to a 52% drop once Saturday and Sunday get factored in and more people have a chance to get out during the day and see Black Panther. With the amazing word-of-mouth, it might even do better, but we'll stay conservative for the moment and call the number for the weekend $97 million. Honestly, with that amount, I'm pretty sure the lowest it will be estimated is $100 million, so look for that to be the box office that Disney reports.

With nearly $400 million in the bank by the end of the weekend, Black Panther will be tracking to be one of the top five comic book movies of all-time and may wind up within the top two. Disney will own ALL the great comic properties.

Out of our new weekend releases, the top one will be Game Night, the comedy featuring Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams and Kyle Chandler (and co-directed by Freaks and Geeks' John Francis Daley!). With a $5.6 million weekend and good reviews and word-of-mouth, Game Night should finish the weekend with $16.2 million. That's a pretty solid start for a movie with a $37 million budget.

Third place belongs to Annihilation, the strange sci-fi film featuring Natalie Portman and written/directed by the great Alex Garland. Based on a book by the terrific, offbeat Jeff Vandermeer, it seems that audiences just didn't know what to make of this one. It earned $3.9 million and should be on its way to $11 million. It did have terrific reviews (87% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes), but it only has a C Cinemascore, indicating that viewers found it off-putting.

Finally, we have the teen romance Every Day, from Orion Pictures. This one got a bit lost in the shuffle, earning earning $1.1 million. It won't have much impact over the weekend, but should earn right around $3 million.