One more milestone has come Black Panther’s way, as it crosses $700 million at the domestic box office. Not many people could’ve correctly predicted the box office dominance that Black Panther has had this year. The film launched in February with little competition, and the interest in Marvel’s first movie led by a person of color propelled Black Panther over its first weekend, opening to over $200 million. The film hasn’t slowed down much since then, with a current worldwide total of more than $1.3 billion.

The impressive nature of Black Panther’s run has greatly been benefited by its terrific performance stateside. While the film earned more than $600M internationally, it is still in select theaters today domestically. The movie’s long legs continued to keep the dream alive that it would break $700M domestically. Now, after six months in theaters, it finally has done so.

Forbes reports Black Panther is set to cross the $700 million mark domestically today. This comes after massive leaps in ticket sales for the movie. The movie made $12,000 on Thursday and $16,000 on Friday, after earning $3,838 and $1,070 on the same days last week. How Black Panther generated this high interest is impossible to say at this point (and Forbes has reached out to Disney for an explanation), but it will allow Black Panther to cross this mark.

Now that Black Panther is officially joining the $700M domestic club, it’ll be one of three films to do so - without adjusting for inflation. James Cameron’s Avatar was the first movie to accomplish this feat following its release in December of 2009. Avatar’s $760 million haul held the record until Star Wars: The Force Awakens easily surpassed it. The J.J. Abrams-directed revival still holds the record with a $936 million domestic total.

With Black Panther’s theatrical run all but finished, it’s coming in as one of the highest grossing films of all-time. Unless Avengers: Infinity War finds a way to earn an additional $23 million domestically, Black Panther will retain its place among the domestic record holders for a while. Worldwide, the movie is the ninth biggest film ever. It’s the biggest solo superhero movie and Marvel Studios’ fourth highest grossing film, falling behind all three Avengers movies. But, right now, it has earned more in the U.S. than Infinity War, which is something that no one could’ve imagined happening just a few months ago.

As if there was ever any doubt that Black Panther 2 was in Marvel’s plans, this level of success moves the conversation to how soon it will come out instead of if. Maybe that’s why Marvel moved a mystery movie date up to February 2021. Whenever the sequel arrives, it’ll be fascinating to see how it compares to Black Panther’s box office run.

More: The Highest Grossing Movies of 2018 (So Far)

Source: Forbes

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