Without a doubt, it’s been an unbelievable year at the box office for the highest grossing film franchise of all-time, which you might know better as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Punctuated by an incredible run at the ticket booth, 2018 saw Avengers: Infinity War become the fourth movie ever to conquer the $2 billion plateau, but before that, it wasn’t the culmination of a decade-long effort to unite Earth’s Mightiest Heroes on the big screen bringing in most of the money.
Towards the end of the summer, Black Panther finally surpassed $700 million at the domestic box office, making the Ryan Coogler-directed feature only the third release to ever to top that mark, behind Avatar ($760M) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($936M). And though the domestic theatrical run for T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) and company, which began way back on February 16th and resulted in a massive $1.34 billion global haul is now over, the pic’s still bringing in the big bucks for Marvel via home video.
According to The Numbers, Black Panther has sold over 4,016,327 units and exceeded more than $84.2 million in sales since debuting on Blu-ray and DVD on May 15th. That means it’s now passed Star Wars: The Last Jedi – $84.1 million and 3,869,068 units – and become the top-selling Blu-ray of the year. What’s also interesting to note is that Disney owns 4 of the top 5 spots, with the other three going to Coco, Thor: Ragnarok and The Greatest Showman.
Circling back to T’Challa, though, and audiences can expect to see the Black Panther return to their screens this coming May for Avengers 4. Yes, he did get turned to dust at the end of Infinity War, but it’s no secret that Chadwick Boseman’s hero, along with many of the others who met their maker, will somehow stage a return, as the gang bands together to finish off Thanos once and for all.
