Marvel and Walt Disney’s Black Panther earned around $6.18 million on Tuesday for a new $512.6m domestic total. Add in another overseas daily gross of around $6m-$7m and that’s a $410m overseas (just over Spider-Man 2 and Wonder Woman) and $922m worldwide (just between Shrek 2 and Two Towers).
After topping $900m worldwide (and $400m overseas) on Monday, it is going to be a few comparatively quiet days before it makes its way past the $1 billion mark. That should happen around Sunday unless it opens huge in China starting on Friday.
It passed Beauty and the Beast ($503 million in 2017) on Monday to become the ninth-biggest domestic grosser of all time, and it should pass Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ($532m in 2016/2017) and The Dark Knight ($534m in 2008) early this weekend.
Once that happens, it will be the second-biggest comic book superhero flick in North America behind The Avengers ($623m in 2012) and thus Chadwick Boseman will be able to call himself America’s Mightiest Hero. Now if you want to note inflation, it’s a slightly more complicated story.
As of today, with $512 million domestic, Black Panther is the eighth-biggest comic book adaptation (superhero or otherwise) behind Superman ($134m in 1978/$527m adjusted), The Dark Knight Rises ($448m in 2012/$528m adjusted), Spider-Man 2 ($373m in 2004/$552m adjusted), Batman ($251m in 1989/$577m adjusted), Spider-Man ($403m in 2002/$637m adjusted), The Dark Knight ($534m in 2008/$683m adjusted) and The Avengers ($623m in 2012/$704m adjusted).
It will pass at least two of those by Sunday and at least four of them by the time it ends its theatrical run. Those last three biggies are harder mountains to climb.
Still, a lot fewer people go to the movies in 2018 than they did in 1989 or even 2008 (or even 2012), so a movie pulling down a $600 million+ domestic gross in the middle of Winter despite competition from VOD, Netflix, TV, YouTube and the like is a very impressive thing.
In terms of worldwide grosses, it’s already the seventh-biggest comic book flick behind only the Dark Knight sequels, the Avengers flicks and the respective third Captain America and Iron Man movies.
It should pass the Batman movies and Captain America: Civil War, along with possibly Iron Man 3 ($1.2b in 2013), but the last two Avengers flicks ($1.4b in 2015 and $1.5b in 2012) may be a bridge too far.
