For the fifth week in a row Black Panther is No. 1 at the weekend box office and is only the third film in almost 20 years to achieve that feat.
Marvel’s Black Panther has now been in theaters for well over a month. Honestly you would have thought that the hype and fervor over the film would have begun to die down just a bit by now.
Turns out, not so much.
For the fifth consecutive week Black Panther took the top spot at the weekend box office, adding another $27 million in ticket sales. That means so far the film has brought in a staggering $605.4 million just in the United States alone. Add in what the movie has made in the rest of the world and the total is an astounding $1.1 billion.
And Black Panther did all that in just five weeks. In February and March.
Impressive indeed.
Black Panther is only the seventh film in history to earn more than $600 million and should have no problem besting the $623 million superhero record that is currently held by The Avengers. Ryan Coogler’s Marvel debut is also only the third movie in the last 19 years, other than The Sixth Sense and Avatar, to hold onto the No. 1 spot for five straight weeks.
As a result, the Tomb Raider reboot starring Alicia Vikander was relegated to second place, earning $23.3 million. When adjusted for inflation, the new film actually made less than 2003’s Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life, which is not good news for Warner Bros.
The really scary thing to consider is that there is every possibility that Black Panther could remain at the top of the box office for another few weeks. With Tomb Raider essentially DOA, the only competition next week will be Pacific Rim: Uprising. And while the fist film does have a hardcore cult following it is unknown if those fans can convince enough people to go to the movies to make the sequel a box office smash.
At the rate Black Panther is going, it’s hard to conceive of any upcoming release being able to knock T’Challa from his throne.
Except maybe Avengers: Infinity War, which opens at the end of April.
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The word phenomena is thrown around a lot when it comes to movies, but that is pretty much the only word to describe what has happened with Black Panther. The film has been embraced by not only geeks but popular culture as a whole. It has shown everyone that diversity in superhero films can work as long as those films are good movies and entertaining first and foremost.
And there is no question that certainly applies when talking about Black Panther.
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