“Black Panther” is now one of the top five highest grossing films in domestic box office history, and the top superhero film on the charts.
The latest Marvel movie passed the $623 million made by “The Avengers” on its sixth Saturday in theaters, grossing $7.76 million to bring its domestic total to $626.5 million. The film is estimated to raise its cume to $631 million after today, giving it a sixth weekend total of $17.5 million.
With this result, “Black Panther” also passed the domestic total of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” which made $619 million this past winter. It is expected to at least take the No. 3 spot on the all-time domestic charts, passing “Jurassic World” with $652 million and “Titanic” with $659 million (unadjusted for inflation).
The highest grossing film in domestic history is “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” with $936.6 million, followed by “Avatar” with $760.5 million. Last week, “Black Panther” became the first film since 2009’s “Avatar” to be the highest grossing film at the box office for five straight weekends. Globally, the film now has a total of $1.23 billion, putting it at No. 12 on the all-time charts and ahead of the $1.21 billion made five years ago by “Iron Man 3.”
“Black Panther” isn’t expected to hold this record for long, however. Box office analysts who spoke with TheWrap project the highly anticipated “Avengers: Infinity War” to gross at least $700 million domestic.
But even if it’s a short-lived visit to the top of the superhero charts, “Black Panther” will have played a major part in the interest for the next “Avengers” film, as several characters from Ryan Coogler’s adventure will appear in it with Wakanda serving as the setting for its climax.