Black Panther breaks $500 million world wide at Box Office

Black Panther earned another $13.3 million overseas yesterday, bringing its foreign total to $228.1m. That means, with its $292m domestic cume, the film has indeed topped the $500m mark in global grosses. The MCU flick has now earned $520m, or just a bit more than Ant-Man ($519m in 2015). It has already outgrossed Thor ($449m in 2011), X-Men: The Last Stand ($459m in 2006) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ($491m in 2014).

We’ll see how the Ryan Coogler-directed action drama holds up this weekend, but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility for the flick to earn $180-$200 million worldwide this weekend, pushing the film just over $700m global by Sunday night. If it comes in at the higher end of optimistic expectations, we may have a global total higher than Captain America: The Winter Soldier ($714m) by Sunday. Whether or not it gets anywhere near $1 billion worldwide, it’s sure to be Marvel’s biggest global grosser (and domestic grosser) without Tony Stark.

Heck, once it gets past Deadpool ($783 million sans 2D, without China and with an R-rating), Spider-Man ($821m in 2002) and Wonder Woman ($821m in 2017) in a week or so, it’ll be the biggest solo comic book superhero movie that doesn’t involve Batman (The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises and Batman v Superman), Spider-Man (Spider-Man 3 and Spider-Man: Homecoming) or Iron Man (Iron Man 3, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron). And once it gets past Spider-Man and Wonder Woman, it’ll also be the biggest solo non-sequel superhero flick ever.

We can go through where it sits among all comic book or superhero movies on Sunday or Monday, but it’s soaring past most of its competition in a matter of weeks. Could we see a situation where Black Panther out-grosses every comic book superhero movie sans The Dark Knight ($1 billion), Captain America: Civil War ($1.1b), The Dark Knight Rises ($1.1b), Iron Man 3 ($1.2b), Avengers: Age of Ultron ($1.4b) and The Avengers ($1.5b)? Absolutely, especially with China and Japan still on the horizon over the next two weeks.

Without arguing that Black Panther is any kind of disappointment at a mere $850 million worldwide, at this juncture the sky is the limit for Hollywood’s coolest cat. Speaking of cats, today is the day Black Panther out-grosses Puss In Boots ($555m in 2011) to become the top cat-themed release since The Lion King. We’ll follow this one for as long as it remains interesting, but it can hardly be contested that Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther is currently Earth’s mightiest hero.

Source: Forbes