Here's How Black Panther: Wakanda Forever's Opening Weekend Stacks Up Against Other MCU Movies

The Marvel Cinematic Universe obviously brings in a lot of money, and the "Black Panther" franchise remains one of its most lucrative properties. According to Variety, back in 2018, "Black Panther" became only the third film in history to make more than $700 million worldwide, the first two being "Avatar" and "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." This has left a lot of expectations for the sequel, which is, unfortunately, missing its leading actor due to Chadwick Boseman's tragic death in 2020. Still, Thursday's box office showed high hopes for the rest of the weekend, with Variety reporting that the movie pulled in about $28 million in ticket sales on Thursday to the first movie's $25 million in Thursday previews.

Despite coming in ahead of the Thursday numbers for the first "Black Panther," not many predictions had "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" beating the overall box office of its predecessor, with more focus being placed on the movie's potential to beat out the biggest opening weekend of the year which, per Variety, is another Marvel property, "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," which brought in $187 million its opening weekend. Even with such a stellar opening weekend, according to Box Office Mojo, the "Doctor Strange" sequel still only had the seventh highest opening weekend for an MCU movie ever, with the number one spot still being held by "Avengers: Endgame" with a whopping $357 million opening weekend.

So how did "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" stack up against other Marvel movies?

According to Variety, "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" kept to its expectations of $175-200 million for its opening weekend, bringing in a total of $180 million over the weekend. That puts it at only the second-highest opening weekend for a film in 2022, with "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" doing just slightly better with $187 million in its opening weekend. It also puts it $22 million short of the opening weekend for the first "Black Panther." However, it still puts "Wakanda Forever" in a firm second place for the year, with the third-highest opening weekend of the year being "Jurassic World Dominion," which raked in $145 million its opening weekend. The film also comes in with the biggest opening weekend ever in November, with the previous record being $158 million for "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire."

According to the aforementioned list from Box Office Mojo, this puts "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" at number eight on the list of all-time highest-grossing opening weekends for Marvel Cinematic Universe films, coming in slightly below "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" and slightly above "Captain America: Civil War," which pulled in $179 million for its opening weekend. At this point, there'd have to be a major drop-off after opening weekend for the movie not to finish as one of the top 10 MCU films in terms of total box office, but that's unlikely as the film currently has an 84% critic score and 95% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning the word-of-mouth about the movie is likely to remain positive.