Pacific Rim overtakes Black Panther on box office charts

Black Panther‘s box office reign has now come to an end, following Pacific Rim Uprising‘s No. 1 place finish atop the domestic charts.

According to Variety magazine, director, Steven S. DeKnight’s followup to Guillermo del Toro’s mecha extravaganza earned a modest $28 million during its debut, but the national total pales in comparison to the film’s international draw. Pacific Rim Uprising brought home a healthy $150 million globally, and the return on robotic investment did not go unnoticed by distributor Universal.

“We’re really pleased with the overall worldwide launch of this title,” said Jim Orr, the studio’s president of domestic distribution. “Pacific Rim Uprising was engineered to be a global event, which it delivered on. It’s very rewarding to be No.1 at the box office and to dethrone the former champion is obviously satisfying. They had a great run.”

While Black Panther failed to finish in first place for what would have been a sixth straight weekend since its record-setting arrival, a second place tally of $16 million was enough to make the film’s lifetime gross ($630 million) the highest-grossing superhero movie ever at the United States box office, overtaking The Avengers.

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In theaters now, director Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther stars Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa/Black Panther, Michael B. Jordan as N’Jadaka/Erik “Killmonger” Stevens, Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia, Danai Gurira as Okoye, Forest Whitaker as Zuri and Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaue.

Directed by Steven S. DeKnight, Pacific Rim Uprising features John Boyega as Jake Pentecost, Scott Eastwood as Nate Lambert, Cailee Spaeny as Amara Namani, Jing Tian as Liwen Shao, Rinko Kikuchi as Mako Mori, Charlie Day as Dr. Newton Geiszler and Burn Gorman as Dr. Hermann Gottlieb.