When it comes to evaluating the financial performance of top movies, it isn’t about what a film grosses at the box office. The true tale is told when production budgets, P&A, talent participations and other costs collide with box office grosses and ancillary revenues from VOD to DVD and TV. To get close to that mysterious end of the equation, Deadline is repeating our Most Valuable Blockbuster tournament for 2018, using data culled by seasoned and trusted sources.

THE FILM

Following the the embarrassment of #OscarsSoWhite four years ago, Black Panther incentivized the film industry beyond wishes, opening the doors to more inclusive storytelling while further demonstrating there’s a strong business in four-quad tentpoles featuring actors of color. T’Challa aka Black Panther was a deeper Marvel Universe character and was introduced in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War alongside the fractured Avengers. With Disney and Marvel’s full might, emerging superstar director Ryan Coogler, a cast of the best and brightest black actors, and the best reviews of any Marvel superhero movie fueling it, Black Panther became a cultural milestone at the global box office as well as the Oscars, with seven nominations including Best Picture and three wins for original score, production design and costume design. Many African American movies do not mirror their domestic performance overseas, but Black Panther drew a nearly equal result abroad at $646.8 million to its $700 million U.S./Canada ticket sales. Black Panther may have notched the sixth-best opening weekend of all time with $202M at the domestic box office, but in regards to its four-day launch over the Presidents Day weekend it is third with $242.1M behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($288M) and Avengers: Infinity War ($282.4M). Black Panther is the third highest-grossing film of all time at the domestic B.O. after Force Awakens ($936.6M) and Avatar ($760.5M). Worldwide, the pic grossed $1.34B.

THE BOX SCORE

Here are the costs and revenues as our experts see them:

THE BOTTOM LINE

Between global film rentals, TV revenues and streaming, and DVD video revenues, Black Panther earns close to a $1 billion. Subtracted from that is slightly more than a half billion in costs including P&A, global video, interest and $45M of participations. This puts Black Panther‘s net profit at $476.8M, an amount that surpasses last year’s No. 1 profit winner in our B.O. tournament, Star Wars: The Last Jedi ($417.5M).