From the looks of the box office numbers that are coming in for Friday, Pacific Rim: Uprising will be the movie to finally topple Black Panther from its well-deserved perch. By the time yesterday ended, the sequel to Guillermo del Toro's exuberant action spectacle had brought in $10.3 million against the Marvel juggernaut's $4.3 million at number two. Though I'm not particularly optimistic about Pacific Rim: Uprising's longevity at the box office in the coming weeks, it looks primed to do a notable amount of business in its opening frame.

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Image via Marvel Studios

That being said, the sequel's success might be eclipsed by Black Panther anyway. It seems all but inevitable that Marvel's latest will become the most lucrative comic-book movie ever made by the end of this weekend, finally slaying the cumulative domestic box office of Joss Whedon's affable Avengers and taking its rightful place in the top five highest grossing movies of all time domestically. By tonight, it will have overtaken Star Wars: The Last Jedi and its worth keeping in mind that Black Panther will have only dropped to second place by the end of this weekend. Ryan Coogler's masterful epic still has another three or four weeks in the top five ahead of it and we might be well into summer before its out of theaters completely. This is all to say that Jurassic World and Titanic should keep an eye over their proverbial shoulder.

The rest of the top five is a bit of a toss-up. I Can Only Imagine, a movie I would not subject my worst enemy to, looks to be holding strong in third with $3.7 million and will likely remain in that spot over the weekend. In fourth, Tomb Raider currently has a threadbare lead over the weekend's other new wide release, Sherlock Gnomes, with both bringing in about $2.8 million yesterday. To be clear, less than a million separates Tomb Raider and I Can Only Imagine while about $50,000 separates the video game adaptation from Sherlock Gnomes. It will be a close race, but this does look unquestionably to be the first weekend at the box office with Black Panther out of the top spot.

Here's the top five at the box office for Friday:

Title

Friday Domestic BO

Total Domestic BO

1. ‘Pacific Rim: Uprising’

$10,362,000

$10,362,000

2. ’Black Panther’

$4,386,000

$618,644,236

3. ‘I Can Only Imagine’

$3,790,785

$28,270,276

4. ‘Tomb Raider’

$2,850,000

$34,168,108

5. ‘Sherlock Gnomes’

$2,800,000

$2,800,000

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Image via Warner Bros.
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Image via Paramount Pictures
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Image via Roadside Attractions