Over a month and a half after its initial release, Black Panther remains a force at the box office. The movie is now the third highest grossing film in history at the domestic box office, as the film’s quality has led to many fans going back for multiple viewings.
Fans who can’t get enough of Wakanda are in luck, as it looks like this month’s Avengers: Infinity War will spend a lot of its runtime in the futuristic African utopia. Infinity War gives Black Panther a semi-sequel that will hit theaters while Wakanda is still fresh in everyone’s minds, so the timing couldn't get any better for Marvel.
The box office expectations for Avengers: Infinity War were already quite high considering how it’s being billed as a movie ten years in the making. The film will bring together characters that have never interacted before, and this same concept was a big reason why the original Avengers movie was such a success.
However, fans have now grown with these characters for a number of years, so they’ll be eager to find out if this is really the end of the Avengers. Since the MCU hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down at the box office, Infinity War is expected to pull in a ton of money.
The momentum from Black Panther should only add to this. As many forecasters expected, a higher percentage of women and African-American viewers bought tickets for the Ryan Coogler-directed film than the average Marvel movie. This resulted in a pretty incredible box office haul for Black Panther.
The viewers who liked the movie will presumably want to see what’s next for T’Challa, Okoye, Shuri and the rest of the characters we got to know in February's smash hit. Audiences around the world fell in love with Wakanda, and with an army of aliens heading right for it, we can assume they’ll want to find out what happens.
The latest TV spot for Infinity War is well aware of how Black Panther was received, as it shows several scenes with T’Challa and Wakandan armies. By putting Wakanda at the forefront of the movie’s marketing, Marvel is looking to bring back the viewers who don’t go see every superhero movie in theatres but made an exception to see a cultural touchstone like Black Panther.
The one thing that might keep this from happening is if these fans feel like they’ve already got their fill of comic book action since Black Panther will likely just be ending its theatrical run by the time Infinity War is released. As long as Infinity War gets heaped with critical praise, this might not be an issue.
Black Panther recently became Marvel’s highest grossing film domestically, but the expectation for Infinity War will be to pass this total.
Despite the unprecedented success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the studio’s high box office expectations have not always been met. Avengers: Age of Ultron was projected to earn over $200 million in its opening weekend, and some forecasters even had it beating The Avengers’ opening total of $207 million, a record at the time.
Age of Ultron was by no means a failure, but its $191 million opening and $459 million total domestic gross fell below expectations. The following year, Captain America Civil War vastly outperformed the previous Captain America film, earning $179 million on its opening weekend. This is an incredible haul for a Captain America movie, but since it was marketed as more of an Avengers film, there was potential for it to break the $200 million mark.
Since the Infinity War storyline has been built up in the Marvel Universe for even longer than Civil War, it is expected to vastly outperform the 2016 hit. Early projections have the movie earning the biggest opening weekend totals in the history of the MCU, with predictions ranging between $200 and $235 million.
If Infinity War does end up setting records, there are a lot of things that we can point to as the reason for this success. However, considering how Black Panther was able to break new ground for a solo superhero movie, T’Challa will deserve a large share of the credit.