The action film “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” from Marvel Studios attracted crowds to theatres around the world over the weekend, grossing an estimated $330 million in ticket sales and breaking November records in the US and Canada.
The 2018 Oscar-nominated blockbuster “Black Panther” sequel made about $180 million domestically from Thursday night to Sunday, according to the distributor Walt Disney Co. That broke the previous record of $158.1 million for a movie that debuted in November.
“The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.”
“Wakanda Forever” made an estimated $150 million from Wednesday through Sunday outside of the domestic market. In every market, it was the highest-grossing Hollywood release.
The outcomes gave a boost to movie theaters, which had been struggling to get ticket sales back to what they were before the pandemic. The domestic sum was the 13th-best movie debut of all time.
When there is something audiences want to see, as Marvel consistently does, “one of the top 15 openings of all time” tells me that the box office is pretty healthy, according to Jeff Bock, senior media analyst at Exhibitor Relations Co.
Chadwick Boseman played King T’Challa in the first “Black Panther,” which made history as the first superhero film with a predominately Black cast. Over the course of its run, the movie earned $1.3 billion at international box offices, making it the only superhero movie to ever be nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards.
After Boseman passed away from cancer in 2020, just before filming was to start, Marvel was forced to remake “Wakanda Forever.”
The casting directors decided against using a different actor to play T’Challa. Instead, T’Challa’s mother Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), his younger sister Shuri (Letitia Wright), and other women who step up to help lead the grieving country are the main characters in a new movie written and directed by Ryan Coogler.
Film critics praised the sequel, stating that despite the absence of the popular lead character, Marvel had managed to honour Boseman while still providing an engaging story.
In reviews gathered on the Rotten Tomatoes website, the film received an 84% positive rating from critics and a 95% positive rating from viewers.
For one of the first “Wakanda Forever” screenings, Bock claimed that his neighbourhood theatre was packed with excited spectators. He said, “I hadn’t seen that in months.”
According to Comscore, domestic box office year-to-date ticket sales are at $6.5 billion as of Sunday. That is 33% less than the 2019 year before the pandemic.
The lack of films, according to Bock, is the issue. Due to COVID, many Hollywood studios are still experiencing production delays. In comparison to 2017, there will be 37% fewer wide releases in 2022.
To boost ticket sales, theatres are anticipating Disney’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” in December and more movies in 2023.
