Marvel’s Black Panther has surpassed a whopping $1 billion at the global box office in just 26 days. #SHOOKETH
With this incredible milestone, the film will join just 32 others who have surpassed the billion dollar mark. These GOAT-worthy films include The Dark Knight, Finding Dory, Rogue One and well, most of The Lord of the Rings films. The superhero flick will also be the 16th Disney film within the 33, another one unsurprisingly being Frozen. Also fun fact, the Minions appear on the list with $1,159,400,000 to its name. That’s a lotta kids.
So what does this mean? Well, director Ryan Coogler, who has a total of just three films to his name, just rocketed to the front lines of superhero directors. Imagine your third ever project making a bloody billion bucks when you’re only 31-years-old. Get outta here. Oh and not to mention, Black Panther is a massive step forward for representation in Hollywood and completely smashes the outdated belief that films with a predominantly black cast don’t go anywhere.
MY KING.
But the good news just keeps on coming. Black Panther debuted in China over the weekend and made a mammoth $20 million on its first day. Meanwhile, back in the U.S the film has made $521 million domestically which means it’s currently in 9th place for most epic release of all time.
Coogler has yet to publicly respond (he’s probably freaking out) but news surfaced over the weekend of the extremely heartfelt letter he penned for fellow director, Ava DuVernay. DuVernay’s new and much anticipated fantasy film, A Wrinkle in Time made its U.S debut on Thursday. And like Black Panther, it too is a film full of powerful diverse characters. The tribute detailing Coogler’s appreciation, love, and respect for DuVernay was published on ESPN.
You can read a snippet of it below.
“In her life before I met her, she was a highly admired Hollywood publicist who owned her own company. By then she had written, produced and directed two amazing films, about black women finding hope while experiencing grief and loss, all while maintaining a production and distribution company to finance and distribute undeserved independent films made by women and people of color. She was already one of my heroes, and that was before she took one of the most sought-after scripts in Hollywood and turned it into the best film about Dr. Martin Luther King that anyone will ever make.”
Tissues, where are they?
“…Then she infused the love she had for her father, and her mother who is still with us, into the beautiful film “A Wrinkle in Time.” I watched closely from across the hall at Disney while working on “Black Panther” as my big sister inspired her crew with love and navigated the challenges of studio filmmaking, adapting a book that many people called unfilmable into a movie that explodes with hope, with love and with women warriors.”
MMMMM.
A Wrinkle in Time hits our cinemas March 29 but until then, you can all go watch Black Panther again.
