The Opening Weekend Box Office for "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" is Anticipated to Surpass $175 Million

The return to Wakanda appears to be boosting the box receipts.

The first box office prediction for Disney and Marvel Studios' Black Panther 2: Wakanda Forever is in, which is fantastic news for the industry. The Hollywood Reporter estimates that Ryan Coogler's much anticipated sequel to 2018's Black Panther will make at least $175 million over its North American opening weekend. That would make Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness' $187.4 million debut in 2022's opening weekend the year's second-best opening.

With $202 million in American box office revenue in its first weekend in February 2018, Black Panther not only set a cultural milestone for its largely Black ensemble, but also became a pop culture sensation because to the tagline "Wakanda Forever," which transcended the movie themselves. The movie eventually made more than $1.34 billion at the box office throughout the world, shattering multiple records in the process. It is presently the highest-grossing movie ever made by a Black director, the third-highest movie ever made in the United States, and the ninth-highest movie ever made overall.

Even though superhero films have typically performed well since cinemas reopened following the COVID-19 outbreak, the global box office is still getting back on its feet. Comparisons will probably be drawn to Spider-Man: No Way Home, a joint Sony/Disney film, which debuted in December 2021 to a $260.1 million domestic gross, second only to Disney and Marvel's Avengers: Endgame ($357.1 million). Avatar was momentarily dethroned as the highest-grossing movie of all time by that movie, but James Cameron's epic was rereleased in advance of the sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, which will be released in December.

Top Gun: Maverick, which gave Tom Cruise the largest picture in his career to date, and Jurassic Park Dominion ($1.001 billion) are presently the highest-grossing movies of the year. Maverick, which is still showing in select cinemas, has achieved astounding popularity that was undoubtedly surprising in this way. It is getting close to $1.5 billion with a domestic total of nearly $715 million, which makes it the fifth-highest-grossing domestic picture in history.

The path taken by Wakanda Forever to the big screen has been fraught with sorrow and upheaval. Chadwick Boseman, who played the title character and starred in the original movie, passed away in August 2020 after a fight with colon cancer. Following his death, Marvel assured fans that T'Challa, the King of Wakanda, would not be replaced and that the plot would continue without him. Filming was scheduled to start in March 2021 and move to June of that same year before his passing.

The movie's May 6, 2022 release date was changed to July 8, 2022, as a result of Boseman's passing. After production was halted due to an accident in which actor Letitia Wright (Shuri) sustained a concussion and a broken shoulder, the release date was once again postponed. After a COVID-19 epidemic among the actors and crew in January, filming was further postponed before being completed on March 24, 2022.

Wright, Lupita Nyong'o, Angela Bassett, Winston Duke, Danai Gurira, Florence Kasumba, and Martin Freeman all return for the sequel, while Dominique Thorne joins the ensemble as Riri Williams, who will soon star in her own Disney+ series called Ironheart. Tenoch Huerta has also agreed to play Namor, the antagonist of the movie and the monarch of Talokan, a prehistoric society of underwater dwellers.

On November 11, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever premieres in cinemas. The return to Wakanda movie trailer is available below: