It was almost inevitable, wasn’t it?
Going into 2018, the three-pronged release of Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War and Ant-Man and the Wasp left comic book fans frothing at the mouth, while the inclusion of David Leitch’s Deadpool 2 certainly helped bring a little R-rated humor into the equation.
And you’ll notice that all four films have one thing in common – Marvel. The only real outlier here is Deadpool 2, which arrived by way of 20th Century Fox. But the fact that the Merc has his roots in Marvel means the House of M can now lay claim to four of 2018’s biggest hits.
Per Box Office Mojo, Black Panther reigns supreme at the domestic box office with just over $700M, followed in quick succession by Avengers: Infinity War ($678M). The other two Marvel movies find themselves a little further down the pecking order, but at $318M and $213M, Deadpool 2 and Ant-Man and the Wasp still ranked at fifth and sixth, respectively.
On the global scale, Avengers: Infinity War zoomed past all the competition to reach $2.04 billion, while Black Panther made history at $1.3 billion. Again, the remaining two Marvel movies of 2018 came in a little lower on the international box office characters, with Deadpool 2 landing at fifth with $734M – less than $50M short of its predecessor, no less – and Ant-Man and the Wasp capping things off with $595M worldwide.
The latter is still playing across select theaters in the United Kingdom and China, so there’s still a chance for that box office cume to rise higher still. As for Marvel Studios? They’ll be hoping that the Brie Larson-fronted Captain Marvel movie can continue the company’s red-hot streak well into 2019.