Indisputably, it’s been an epoch-making 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 unprecedented run at the ticket booth, 2018 saw Avengers: Infinity War become only the fourth motion picture ever to conquer the $2 billion plateau. Earlier on, however, it wasn’t the culmination of a decade-long effort to unite Earth’s Mightiest Heroes on the big screen doing most of the damage.
Late last week, Black Panther surpassed $700 million at the domestic box office, making the Ryan Coogler-directed feature the third film ever to top that mark, behind only Avatar ($760M) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($936M). Although, sadly, yesterday signaled the end of the domestic theatrical run for T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) and company, which began way back on February 16th and has resulted in a massive $1.34 billion global haul thus far – which is good enough for the ninth spot on the all-time worldwide gross chart.
While shattering a box office record or two is nothing new to the studio which produced it, Black Panther did accomplish something no film in the history of the MCU, or cinema, for that matter, was able to achieve. Granted, holding an A+ CinemaScore and a 97% Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes is excellent and all, but the pièce de résistance for the eighteenth MCU installment came in the form of the first African-American feature to earn more than $1 billion.
Should Marvel continue to operate at full throttle, we can expect many a box office record to fall. After all, the domestic ticket booth crossed the $6 billion threshold on June 27th, making that date the earliest it’s ever reached the total. And seeing as $1.37 billion of that new touchstone can be attributed to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s hard to envision a contender who can stand up to the heat.
Tell us, were you one of the many individuals who contributed to Black Panther‘s incredible box office gross? Let us know by dropping a comment below.
