It’s official, Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther” has joined the one billion dollar club. As of a few hours ago, this awesome Marvel flick grossed US$ 1.08 billion at the global box office.
As it stands, “Black Panther has grossed US$ 561.6 million in North America and US$ 518.1 million outside of North America. The film even opened to a solid US$ 66 million in China in its opening weekend.
Over the past couple of weeks, “Black Panther” has been continuously breaking records and this past week was no different. The 18th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the ‘third biggest fourth weekend gross in North America’ — behind “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” (US$ 42.353 million) and “Avatar” (US$ 50 million) — and the ‘biggest solo superhero movie in North America’. Globally, “Black Panther” is lagging behind only “The Dark Knight Rises” and “Iron Man 3”, as far as solo superhero movie goes.
But by far the most interesting record that “Black Panther” has broken (or set for the first, time to be precise), is the fact that it is the first movie with a black lead to gross US$ 1 billion at the global box office. Here are the movies that have grossed US$ 1 billion globally:
There are a number of movies in this billion dollar club that star black actors in prominent supporting roles such as “The Fast and Furious” movies (Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris), a number of “Star Wars” movies (Samuel L Jackson, John Boyega, Forest Whitaker), a few “Transformers” movies (Tyrese Gibson), “The Dark Knight” and “The Dark Knight Rises” (Morgan Freeman) and a number of Marvel movies (Anthony Mackie and Don Cheadle). However, “Black Panther” is the first movie to gross US$ 1 billion with a black LEAD. In fact, the entire cast of “Black Panther” is black, besides Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis.
Hopefully, this shows the old white men who run most major Hollywood studios that people of colour can rake in the big bucks too!
