It’s safe to say that Black Panther exceeded just about everyone’s expectations at the box office.
It was only a few months ago that we were taking a look at the film’s projections and concluded that it might struggle to do as well as Wonder Woman and that it looked on track to have “a slightly bigger opening weekend than Doctor Strange and Ant-Man.” Well, it’s now left those movies in the dust and gone on to achieve the incredible feat of becoming one of Marvel Studios’ most financially successful efforts to date.
To be more precise, Black Panther recently crossed the $650 million mark at the domestic box office (it’s one of only five movies in cinema history to achieve this milestone). It also stayed at the top of the charts for five straight weeks, seeing off all competition until finally being unseated by Pacific Rim Uprising. This excellent performance on home turf is only buoyed up even more by its success overseas, combining to bring in a stupendous worldwide gross of $1.3 billion – at the time of writing.
And so now, with its theatrical run starting to wind down, Marvel’s making plans for the film’s Blu-ray release. In fact, thanks to the above promo, we can tell you that it’ll be yours to take home on May 15th. Or, May 8th if you prefer to own it digitally. Special features and whatnot haven’t been revealed just yet, but those will no doubt be announced in the coming weeks.
You can bet that the studio will be going all out for this home video release, too, as Black Panther is a very special movie, one that truly feels like a once-in-a-generation piece of filmmaking that will have far-reaching implications – cultural, social, economic – for the MCU and beyond. When it comes to Marvel’s superhero franchise, in particular, we know Wakanda will be angled as something of an “anchor point” for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes going forward, while we fully expect Kevin Feige to strike a deal with Ryan Coogler over a possible sequel sooner rather than later.
One thing’s for sure: T’Challa and Black Panther‘s ensemble cast – namely Okoye (Danai Gurira), Shuri (Letitia Wright) and Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) – will all return for Avengers: Infinity War, which will tee up the next era of the MCU on April 27th.
