‘Black Panther’ Reaches $1 Billion Box Office Benchmark

By Sameer Rao Mar 12, 2018

The "Black Panther" money train shows no signs of slowing down as the film continues to dominate domestic and international box offices for a fourth weekend in a row. 

Cinema tracking website Box Office Mojo reported yesterday (March 11) that an estimated $41.1 million take at movie theaters over the weekend kept "Black Panther" on top at the box office. It has raked in $562 million and $1.08 billion in North America and worldwide earnings, respectively. Variety notes that the latter figure, unadjusted for inflation, puts Ryan Coogler‘s film in an elite club of only five Marvel movies that surpassed the $1 billion benchmark. Just one of those films ("Iron Man 3") focused on a solo protagonist.

Forbes writes that the North American number, also unadjusted for inflation, makes "Black Panther" the most successful solo superhero movie of all time, domestically. It also places "Black Panther" behind only "The Avengers," which earned a total of $623.4 million in North American theaters, as the most successful Marvel movie in that market. Box Office Mojo tallies put "The Avengers" at $513.4 million in its own fourth weekend, which indicates that "Black Panther" is already tracking to become the biggest superhero movie in U.S. box office history.

Box Office Mojo also reports that "A Wrinkle in Time," which opened on Friday (March 9), took the number two spot with $33.3 million in North America and $39.6 million worldwide. The film was directed by Ava DuVernay—who co-founded the Blackout for Human Rights collective with Coogler—and it features several Black leading actors. Shadow and Act notes that this is the first time in history where two films from Black directors occupied the top two box office positions in the United States.