Can T’Challa be stopped? It sure doesn’t look like it, as even it its second weekend in theaters, Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther is still busy breaking records. After what was an absolutely incredible opening, the spinoff held steady at the box office this weekend, dropping only 46.5% and taking in $108 million.
For those keeping track, that makes it the best second weekend for any Marvel Cinematic Universe film, with The Avengers trailing behind (as usual) with its $103 million take. Outside the MCU, that $108 million is equally as impressive, landing Black Panther in second place, behind only The Force Awakens‘ $149.2 million. Not only that, but the pic now has $400 million on this side of the pond (in only 10 days), a milestone that Joss Whedon’s aforementioned 2012 team-up took 14 days to hit.
But wait, there’s more. In case you haven’t heard, the worldwide gross for T’Challa’s first standalone outing is currently simmering just north of $700 million, which has pushed the MCU as a whole to over $14 billion. And that comes not even a year after Spider-Man: Homecoming helped it hit $12 billion. In other words, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is, without a doubt, one of the most successful franchises, ever.
Circling back to Black Panther though, and while it is an MCU movie and therefore pretty much guaranteed to make money, nobody expected it to perform this well. After all, it’s being released way out of summer blockbuster season, it stars a relatively obscure C-list superhero and goes against the received wisdom that white audiences just won’t turn up to see a film starring a predominantly black cast.
Well, nuts to all the naysayers – it’s almost a guarantee now that Ryan Coogler’s spinoff will break the $1 billion mark when all’s said and done, and that’s mighty impressive. How much higher it’ll climb from there remains to be seen, but no one can deny what a smashing success Black Panther has been and given how well crafted and executed it is, we’ve got nothing but a huge smile on our face as we watch it claw its way to box office glory.
