By Black Panther dominated the box office again this weekend, and not just in a way that a movie with no competition normally would. It had the second biggest second weekend in history with $108 million, coming in behind only The Force Awakens. In two weeks the film has outgrossed every other Marvel movie except for the two Avengers films, and it’s on pace to do beat out both of those by the end of next week. I mean… damn. Worldwide the movie has brought in $704 million, and hasn’t even opened in China yet.
This all begs the question if Marvel needs to reevaluate how it was going to anchor the next phases of the MCU. In the first three Iron Man held together the universe, eventually making way for Captain America to do the heavy lifting. But both those character’s stories will come to a sort-of end with the upcoming Infinity Wars films, and the next phase is going to need new characters to drive them forward. Early word was that Captain Marvel would be the anchor, but given Black Panther’s success should Marvel make him the new Captain America?
I’m of two minds here. On one hand T’Challa is an awesome character and Chadwick Boseman has the presence on screen to easily handle this. On the other, one of the best things about Black Panther was that it was its own thing for the most part. Turning the upcoming Black Panther films into something like Civil War, which was basically just Avenegers 2.5, would lose a lot of what made the movie great and thus so successful.
This, of course, could all be a moot point, as Marvel’s plans could involve more Cap or more Iron Man or more of some other hero we don’t know about that they plan to anchor the story moving forward with.
Can we also just take a moment to recognizing the fact that Jumanji and The Greatest Showman are still in the top ten nearly two months after their initial release. That’s insane.
1. Black Panther – $108,046,000
2. Game Night – $16,600,000
3. Peter Rabbit – $12,545,000
4. Annihilation – $11,000,000
5. Fifty Shades Freed – $6,915,000
6. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle – $5,650,000
7. The 15:17 to Paris – $3,600,000
8. The Greatest Showman – $3,400,000
9. Every Day – $3,103,996
10. Early Man – $1,700,000
