The anticipation, excitement and ballyhoo behind the Marvel movie Black Panther was unprecedented in the urban community in its intensity, depth and longevity. Many months ago, momentum began to build behind the Ryan Coogler-directed flick like the energy behind a projectile before it torpedoed its way out the gates and into the record books.
However, even film aficionados could not have seen this kind of mania six months ago. No prognosticator could have predicted weeks out from the premiere of the Chadwick Boseman-led film that it would slaughter all current competition, then mow down the biggest money-making Marvel Studios films and other comic movies like blades of grass — in just two weeks — on its way up the list of all-time moneymakers.
Black Panther furthered its 2018 domination this past weekend, becoming only the fourth film to ever deliver over $100 million in its second weekend as well as joining Jurassic World as the second fastest film to top $400 million domestically, Box Office Mojo reported.
Panther also surpassed the $700M mark worldwide to sit at $727M. Now, what was it they said about the difficulty of Black-led films translating overseas?
Black Panther is the third-biggest Marvel Cinematic Universe movie in North America. It earned $8.1 million on its 11th day of release, putting the total at $411.7 million.
That puts Black Panther past Captain America: Civil War ($408M in 2016) and Iron Man 3 ($409M in 2013) to be the third-biggest MCU grosser. By today, it will be the fifth-biggest comic book superhero movie of all time in unadjusted North American grosses, behind only The Dark Knight Rises ($448M in 2012), Avengers: Age of Ultron ($458M in 2015), The Dark Knight ($534M in 2008) and The Avengers ($623M), Forbes magazine reports.
Without drowning you in statistics and numbers, the Chadwick Boseman superhero flick is already the biggest non-sequel solo superhero movie of all time. In other words, for a first-time film, Black Panther is the best ever in its box-office performance. After just two weeks.
Forbes magazine adjusted the movie for inflation, but said it’s still past Iron Man ($318M in 2008/$407M adjusted) and behind only Civil War ($427M adjusted), Iron Man 3 ($448M adjusted), Age of Ultron ($491M adjusted) and The Avengers ($706M adjusted).
This places Panther between E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial ($435M, including reissues) and Shrek 2 ($441M in 2004) to be the 16th-biggest domestic earner of all time. Again, in just two weeks.
If Black Panther continues its immensely impressive performance, Box Office Mojo said will earn a spot on the all-time top 10 list with ample momentum to keep going higher. But even with those kinds of numbers, Forbes predicts, it’ll still probably end up behind the $517M 17-day total of The Last Jedi.
But who’d care? No one at Marvel Studios or Disney will complain. Not one bit.
