The plot and worldview of Black Panther alone make it an atypical superhero film. Its global ticket sales reached $1 billion within four weeks. Now eight weeks in, Black Panther is the 10th highest grossing film of all time, the third highest grossing film in North America, and has just passed Titanic in US ticket sales (without accounting for inflation).
Let’s compare that to the highest grossing Hollywood films since 2000.
Black Panther’s US appeal is the strongest of any movie in the past 10 years. Only four films among the 56 analyzed here exceed Black Panther‘s reliance on domestic revenue to reach $1 billion in sales. The last film to do so, The Dark Knight, was released in 2008.
Blockbusters today make less money in the US than elsewhere, which Hollywood studios take into account when planning releases. With a huge worldwide opening weekend last year, the eighth installment in the Fast and Furious franchise, The Fate of the Furious, had collected just 16% of its box office revenue from US theaters when it crossed the $1 billion mark. Similarly, Pixar movies increasingly find their appeal from international audiences. Black Panther’s strong US release set it apart.
For billion-dollar box-office films released in the past five years: