In the world of comics, T'Challa often finds himself regarded as the wealthiest superhero of the bunch. Now with Ryan Coogler's Black Panther in theaters, there's a strong case to be made that the film's box office haul is helping the silver screen T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) live up to that reputation. Black Panther's box office estimates were already lofty, but the film has already blown past them by breaking the $200 million barrier.
Even before the end of Black Panther's opening weekend, there was already cause for celebration over at Marvel Studios. The film's tracking suggested a fantastic $190 million opening weekend, which would've made it one of Marvel's best opening weekends ever. But the numbers continued to climb through Black Panther's first few days on the big screen, and now its opening weekend total is sitting comfortably at almost $202 million domestically and $404 million worldwide -- and it's only going to climb higher from there. In fact, based on the films that Black Panther is currently in the company of (its opening weekend is wedged between Avengers: Age of Ultron and The Avengers), if the numbers hold firm, it could make it to the coveted $1 billion benchmark.
One need only look at other recent comic book movies to understand just how well Black Panther is doing at the box office right now. The film's direct predecessor, Thor: Ragnarok, was considered a clear box office success when it debuted back in November, and that film only garnered roughly $123 million during its opening weekend. Ragnarok had the added advantage of being part of an existing franchise, as well as had character recognition with the presence of Marvel icons like Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), not to mention a lot of fan enthusiasm over how fun and different Ragnarok looked compared to its predecessors.
By contrast, Black Panther only really has the setup from Captain America: Civil War, and even then, audiences are mostly going into Wakanda without much exposure to its characters. This is a fantastic haul for a character relatively unknown to mainstream audiences until recently.
It's also worth holding Black Panther's box office performance up against the most recent offering from the DCEU. Specifically, Black Panther has more than doubled Justice League's opening weekend by a healthy margin. Beyond that, the landmark Marvel movie's worldwide gross has already surpassed Justice League's entire $227 domestic run after only three days in theaters, and it seems highly probable that it will blow past Justice League's $657 million global total soon enough.
CinemaBlend will keep you posted with any and all relevant information related to Ryan Coogler's Black Panther and the film's meteoric rise to box office dominance as more details becomes available. Looking ahead, make sure to watch out for T'Challa's next appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe later this year when Avengers: Infinity War premieres in theaters on May 4.
