Black Panther: Wakanda Forever passed another big milestone at the box office this weekend. The Marvel Studios sequel rolled past $600 million globally and now sits as the 7th biggest film of the year. Just ahead of it is Thor: Love and Thunder, but the Wakandan adventure is poised to overtake it and a number of other features in the franchise. It’s not a stretch to believe that the Black Panther sequel could pass Iron Man 2, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Thor: The Dark World and Doctor Strange, which all come in under $700 million. Ryan Coogler’s epic has poised itself to be the second most successful MCU Phase 4 movie behind Spider-Man: No Way Home. Unfortunately for the studio, not releasing in China likely hurt its ability to get to $1 billion faster. But, that might not end up mattering as the numbers continue in a strong direction as Avatar: The Way of Water looms at the end of the year. For a sequel without the lead star of the first movie, this is a big deal for Marvel Studios and the state of the MCU headed into Phase 5.
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This week, fans were surprised to see Director Ryan Coogler thank all of them for their support on Wakanda Forever. The response after the release of the film has been tremendous. So, he had to say thank you for all the love.
“Thank you,” Coogler’s letter begins. “Thank you to the people who bought their tickets early and camped out opening weekend. Thank you to those of you took their families out- young ones and elders in tow. To those who organized youth screenings and afterparties, who bought out theaters for communities and friends. To all of you who watched multiple times, and encouraged other folks to check it out. Our film is over two and a half hours long, so thank you for holding those bathroom breaks. Our film has 6 languages spoken in it. Thank you for bearing with the subtitles. And our film deals with the inescapable human emotion of grief.”
“Thank you for opening yourself up to the emotional journey of this film. We made something to honor our friend, who was a giant in our industry, and we also made something to be enjoyed in theatrical setting with friends, family, and strangers. Something to be quoted and discussed,” he added. “To be debated. Something to make people both physically and emotionally feel seen. This medium wouldn’t exist without an audience, and I thank you for giving me professional purpose, and an emotional outlet. I look forward to bringing you more stories in the future.”
Have you seen the movie yet? How high do you think it can climb?” Let us know down in the comments!
