It came as no surprise when Black Panther: Wakanda Forever did well during its opening week at the box office. For starters, it is a Marvel movie, and even if some are tired of the constant churning out of superhero flicks, they still sell. Secondly, it is a sequel to one of the most critically well-received Marvel films, Black Panther, and after the loss of Chadwick Boseman, many saw the film as a send-off to the well-loved actor.
Wakanda Forever was set to dominate the box office before it was even released with pre-sales for the tickets indicating it would be a huge opening weekend. The film’s opening weekend saw an impressive $181 million, way above Thor: Love and Thunder‘s $144.2 million though still scraping just behind Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, $187 million, with Spider-Man: No Way Home running home with $260.1 million.
Where Wakanda Forever has topped its contemporaries is that its second-week drop has been marginally better than all of the above. Though many expected the film to make $70 million in its second week and it did fall short, making $67.3 million domestically, it only fell by 63 percent, better than most other Marvel films released during the Covid pandemic era.
Black Widow fell the hardest, though it was released whilst the threat of Covid was a much greater presence, dropping 67.8 percent in its second week. Thor: Love and Thunder fell by 67.7 percent, just edging in behind Black Widow, whilst Spider-Man: No Way Home fell 67.5 percent, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness fell 67.1 percent.
As it stands, the MCU film with the lowest drop-off of all time was Ryan Coogler’s first Black Panther, which only saw a drop-off of 44.7 percent in its second week. Many now wonder whether the sequel will be able to live up to the first’s global box office success of $1.4 billion. As it stands Wakanda Forever has earned $546 million, though it hopes to continue to be a strong presence in theatres over the Thanksgiving period.