A cultural and box office phenom
Even in an era where we seem to have record breaking weekends several times a year for the big blockbuster movies, Black Panther has become a true phenomenon. Last weekend it became the fifth movie to debut with over $200 million in its first three days, and $235 million over the four day President's Day weekend, putting it just ahead of Jurassic World's opening two years back, for the third biggest ever. Now, it earns another $108 million for the second highest second weekend ever, just ahead of Jurassic World and behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens. That places it right next to Jurassic World as the second fastest movie to top $400 million, and now we see just how far it can go in the long run. With a stellar "A+" Cinemascore and already showing strong legs in huge weekday numbers, my guess is that it will at least join the elite "$600 million club," a list that includes just two Star Wars movies, Avatar, Titanic, Jurassic World and The Avengers. And that's just domestic- worldwide it's already at $700 million and will easily cross the billion mark (not sure about 2 billion- that list still only has Titanic, Avatar and The Force Awakens on it).
When you list all these movies next to each other, you see that Star Wars and the James Cameron movies are kind of in another universe, while Jurassic World seems like a hysterical fluke of extreme nostalgia, and then you see that in terms of superhero movies, the first Avengers is the only other one in the genre that had this kind of mass appeal and hype. So the cultural phenomenon of Black Panther is hugely significant when you compare it just to other films in the genre- what it does is transcend it to be put on terms that appeal far beyond it. Needless to say it could likely become Marvel's most successful movie ever, and that is quite a feat.
