Black Panther: 2018's Early Huge Hit

Now these days, putting out a movie in January or February seems like a huge home run. If you're Marvel, it's a huge cash in. Fox's Deadpool two years ago was a monumental hit with a cheap budget for comic book film standards. Right now, that pales to what Black Panther is doing in just about two weeks into its run in theaters.

The Disney led popcorn flick made over 200 million in it's first weekend including the Monday for President's Day. Last week, it held on to over 100 mil. Currently it sits comfortably at number one domestically and worldwide with over 400 million in the US and over 700 million overall. Competition hasn't exactly been strong, and I doubt the Bruce Willis led Death Wish remake is going to change anything. If anything, this could reach 1 billion after this weekend and no signs of stopping.

So far, the movie industry has made almost 2 billion for 2018. But what exactly is making Black Panther do well? Some like to pull the race card into this, but I don't buy into that. I think it comes down to it being different than your typical idiotic Disney/Marvel popcorn flick. It's a different approach without relying on Tony Stark cameos and seeing different characters than the typical ones like Captain America and Thor. Don't rule out the possibility it can gross more than The Avengers film from 2012. If it keeps people interested, then the drops every weekend shouldn't hurt, even with a 200 million dollar budget.

Will Disney and Marvel milk this? I can see it happening, though whether that will interfere with their cinematic universe nonsense is a different story. For the moment, however, they seem focused on doing more Avenger films, a new Ant-Man, and another Spider-Man. Even if they were to write decent screenplays, eventually audiences will tire of them. That wow factor is not going to be the same.

Unless A Wrinkle in Time flops next weekend. Black Panther will still have fight in it to be number one for at least two more weeks.