T’Challa may soon rule more than Wakanda. Black Panther is Marvel’s most anticipated movie yet, based on pre-sales at the US ticket-buying site Fandango.
Tickets for the movie, which went on sale Monday night, sold more in the first 24 hours on Fandango than any other Marvel movie, Fandango said in a release. The movie was also the top ticket-seller of the day, beating out current releases like Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The company did not say how many tickets sold. Black Panther hits US theaters on Feb. 16.
T’Challa, played by Chadwick Boseman, is the Black Panther, the ruler of the fictional African nation of Wakanda. The character was introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, where he was in the early stages of taking up the mantle of the Black Panther from his father, T’Chaka, the late king. The comic-book character on which he’s based was the first mainstream superhero of African descent, and fans are eager to see how he’ll be portrayed in his own film. It’s being helmed by Fruitvale Station-director Ryan Coogler, and has an all-star cast including Michael B. Jordan, Get Out‘s Daniel Kaluuya, and Lupita Nyong’o, who apparently couldn’t get tickets to her own movie because it sold out so quickly.
Captain America: Civil War, which featured an epic battle with nearly all of Marvel’s heroes and the long-awaited debut of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, was the previous record holder in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But, even with all the early buzz, it did not overtake predecessors Iron Man 3 and the first two Avengers films at the box office. We’ll see if Black Panther can unseat those blockbusters come February.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens stills hold the record for advanced ticket sales in its first 24 hours overall.
2018 will be a landmark year for Marvel Studios. It celebrates 10 years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that started with Iron Man in 2008, this May. And it will culminate that milestone with the release of Avengers: Infinity War, which marks the beginning of the end of the Marvel movie universe as we know it. It’s the most anticipated movie of 2018, just ahead of Black Panther, Fandango also found in a 2017 survey of 8,000 moviegoers. The Ant-Man sequel Ant-Man and Wasp is also due out later in the season.