Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ Tops 5th Straight Weekend Box Office
December 11, 2022
Disney-owned Marvel Studios’ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever topped the Dec 9-11 weekend box office with an estimated $11 million in revenue. The result represents the fifth consecutive No. 1 weekly box office for the sequel to 2018’s box office blockbuster Black Panther, starring the late Chadwick Boseman. Wakanda Forever has now topped $400 million at the North American box office and $767 million worldwide, and ranks as the No. 3 grossing domestic movie of the year.
That said, the movie’s ticket sales fell below projections and underscored an ongoing 2022 trend of lackluster moviegoer interest among consumers. That trajectory is expected to stopped in its tracks heading into 2023 with next weekend’s debut of James Cameron’s long-awaited sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water.
Until then, despite the breakout success of Paramount Pictures’ Top Gun: Maverick ($718 million domestically, $1.48 billion worldwide), the title will not match 2021’s box office champ, Spider-Man: No Way Home (Sony Pictures), which approached $805 million in North American revenue, and topped $1.9 billion globally.
The 2022 box office, however, is well ahead of last year with more than $6.7 billion in revenue, compared with $4.48 billion in 2021. And that’s not including the pending Avatar: The Way of Water.
Meanwhile, Universal Pictures’ Christmas dark comedy thriller, Violent Night, added almost $9 million to push its two-weekend total past $26 million. That was enough to best box office support players, including Disney Animation Studios’ Strange World with $3.6 million in ticket sales; Searchlight Pictures’ The Menu with another $2.7 million, and Columbia Pictures’ Devotion with $2 million) squeezing Warner Bros. Pictures’ DC Comics anti-superhero Black Adam ($1.3 million) out of the top five.