Black Panther: Wakanda Forever keeps breaking records since its debut this past November, and director Ryan Coogler is closing in on his own all-time feat as a result of the critically acclaimed superhero film.
According to entertainment journalist Erik Davis on Twitter, should Black Panther: Wakanda Forever top the box office for a fifth consecutive week, it will make Coogler the first director in history to have two movies have a five-week run at number one. The original Black Panther movie, released in 2018, also had a five-week run as the box office leader. Its sequel is the first MCU film since the 2021 movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings to top the box office charts for four weeks running.
With the Black Panther sequel having achieved a four-week stay at the top of the box office rankings, Coogler joined notable British filmmaker Christopher Nolan and Academy Award-winning helmer James Cameron to achieve the feat with two big-screen efforts. Nolan is best known for his superhero film The Dark Knight, starring Heath Ledger, which held the number one spot during its first four weeks in theaters in 2008. Cameron, meanwhile, saw his 2009 sci-fi thriller, Avatar, top the box office rankings for seven straight weeks while his cult classic Titanic holds the second-longest run at the top, leading for 15 consecutive weeks between December 1997 and April 1998.
Black Panther 2 Is a Box-Office Smash
Netting over $733 million at the global box office since its theatrical debut, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever became the highest-grossing film of the fall, distancing itself from another Marvel movie, Black Adam, which previously held the mark. The figure also places the Black Panther sequel seventh among the top box office sellers of 2022. With Thor: Love and Thunder and The Batman earning $760 and $770 million respectively in 2022, there's every chance Coogler's latest project breaks the top five.
Achieving the unprecedented box office feat would be a blessing for Coogler considering he feared Marvel would fire him from the first film because he was falling behind schedule. However, he stayed on and Black Panther launched his career into the stratosphere, generating over $1.344 billion at the box office and receiving widespread praise for its story and portrayal of Black characters. For Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Coogler went all out to ensure the best final product possible, going as far as to learn how to swim to capture scenes involving Namor actor Tenoch Huerta.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever features much of the cast from the original film including Letitia Wright (Shuri), Lupita Nyong'o (Nakia), Angela Bassett (Queen Ramonda), Winston Duke (M'Baku) and the aforementioned Huerta. Michael B. Jordan, who played Killmonger in the first movie, made a cameo in the sequel. The film paid tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman, who played the titular role in the initial Black Panther release. Boseman passed away from colon cancer in August 2020, aged 43.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is in theaters now.
Source: Twitter