Marvel’s Black Panther is a smash-hit. Critics are hailing it as one of the best superhero movies ever, and it currently holds a 97% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Marvel Studios’ 18th film stars Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Danai Gurira, Lupita Nyong’o, and Daniel Kaluuya. It is the first superhero blockbuster movie featuring a predominantly African-American cast to be released.
Black Panther has already broken several records, including best February movie opening weekend ever, and the accolades for director Ryan Coogler keep raining in. Now that the opening week numbers are all accounted for as well, Black Panther has surpassed The Avengers as Marvel’s highest grossing opening week film. Black Panther earned $292 million in North America in its first week, while The Avengers earned $270 million. The Afro-centric film brought in an additional $228 million internationally, brings its first-week total to $520 million. At this pace, Ryan Coogler’s third film is expected to break $1 billion dollars within three weeks.
Black Panther’s first week numbers surpass the lifetime theatrical domestic earnings of movies like Justice League ($228 million), Doctor Strange ($232 million), both Amazing Spider-Man films, Logan ($226 million), and every Fox X-Men film except Deadpool.