Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Just Broke A Major Record
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has become North America's biggest November box office debut of all time.
A slew of new movies is on their way to theaters to monopolize the uptick of families, friends, and solo viewers heading to the cinema for their annual tradition. From comedies like Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery to Disney’s animated feature Strange World, audiences are picking out what stories they can’t wait to see. But, one movie, in particular, is grabbing the wallets of theatergoers by the droves as The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has made history by nabbing the title of North America’s biggest November debut of all time.
Landing in theaters over the weekend, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever raked in a whopping $180 million domestically, with global sales skyrocketing to $330 million. Before the sequel film’s box office takeover, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire held the money-making November title for almost a decade when it earned $158.1 million in 2013. Before that, The Twilight Saga: New Moon broke records in 2009 with $142.8 million in domestic sales.
Sales numbers for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever shows that fans were still itching and ready to see the movie despite the untimely and tragic passing of Chadwick Boseman, who played the titular superhero in the original film back in 2018. After Boseman passed away from cancer in 2020, the franchise’s future success was put into question, but the fans spoke, and they were ready to see the follow-up story.
With a call sheet that includes the likes of Angela Bassett, Letitia Wright, Danai Gurira, Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Michael B. Jordan, Daniel Kaluuya, Tenoch Huerta, Mabel Cadena, and Dominique Thorne, the absence of Boseman is missed, but the story has been carried by these actors’ incredible performances.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever centers around the legendary kingdom following the death of the beloved King T’Challa aka Black Panther. Holding it all together, Queen Ramona, Shuri, M’Baku, Okoye, and the Dora Millaje come to blows with outside forces threatening their beloved Wakanda’s very existence. With new baddies coming out of the woodwork to get their hands on Wakanda’s coveted vibranium, the feature introduces some new faces to the MCU franchise.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was helmed and co-penned by Ryan Coogler, who also served as the original film’s director. A celebrated filmmaker, Coogler also stood behind 2021’s biographical drama Judas and the Black Messiah, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. He frequently collaborates with Black Panther stars Daniel Kaluuya and Michael B. Jordan, with the former starring in Judas and the Black Messiah and the latter leading in Coogler’s Rocky spin-off, Creed.
Despite several setbacks during filming, including Wright’s injury while performing a stunt and Nyong’o’s positive COVID testing, we’re happy to see that the film successfully made its way into theaters just in time for a proper Thanksgiving viewing. Just at the beginning of its theatrical run, the box office numbers for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever are only bound to continue to soar.
