Marvel’s Black Panther has become the highest-grossing superhero film in the US. The film with a star-studded black cast has made $631 million to date at the domestic box office, surpassing 2012’s The Avengers previous record of $623 million.
However, when adjusted for inflation, Black Panther is the fourth-highest grossing superhero film in the US, trailing The Avengers, The Dark Knight, and Spider-Man.
The film was widely hailed as a groundbreaking celebration of black culture. The enthusiasm around the film has inspired everything from schools teaching a broader range of black history subjects, Black Panther-themed watch parties, and voter-registration drives.
The film also became the fifth highest-grossing movie ever in the US (again, not adjusted for inflation). It ranks behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($936.6 million), Avatar ($760.5 million), Titanic ($659.3 million), and Jurassic World ($652.2 million).
Globally, Black Panther ended last weekend with $1.237 billion in ticket sales, surpassing Iron Man 3 ($1.214 billion) to rank as the third-highest grossing superhero title of all time at the worldwide box office, behind The Avengers ($1.518 billion) and Avengers: Age of Ultron ($1.405 billion).
Black Panther held the top spot at the US box office for five straight weekends, but was finally dethroned (paywall) by Pacific Rim Uprising. In its sixth weekend, Black Panther racked up $17 million domestically at 3,370 locations. James Cameron’s Avatar was the last film to sit in first place at the US box office for at least five weekends, earning that honor for seven weeks in 2009 and 2010. Before that, M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense was the last film to hold the top spot for five consecutive weekends.