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Black Panther Wakanda Forever had the third strongest opening for a Phase 4 movie as it only fell behind Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. While none of the MCU movies entered the billion-dollar club in 2022, Disney and Marvel had high expectations from Black Panther Wakanda Forever.
But now it seems that the latest MCU outing will not end up anywhere close to its predecessor. The first film opened with $202 million domestically and made $1.382 billion worldwide in its entire box office run. Black Panther Wakanda Forever was presumed to join Top Gun: Maverick, Jurassic World: Dominion, and possibly even Avatar: The Way of Water in their success. But it won’t.
Disclaimer: This article reflects the author's opinion on the matter.
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Black Panther Wakanda Forever: Box Office Report
Considering the success of Black Panther, its sequel’s entry into the billion-dollar club seemed quite easy (especially after the first trailer). But as of now, the film only stands at $733 million worldwide, out of which $393 million has come from the domestic market.
Black Panther Wakanda Forever held strong on its third weekend, which came in the holiday period, but it suffered a 61.4% drop in the domestic market on its fourth weekend. It only made $17 million after the holiday period ended, and this number will fall even steeper in the next couple of weekends.
Additionally, the international market hasn’t supported the film as well as it should have ($339 million). And there are five reasons why people across the world aren’t watching this film enough to allow it to even beat Doctor Strange 2’s $955 million worldwide.
Post Pandemic streaming syndrome
Ever since theaters reopened after the COVID pandemic, people have gotten used to streaming content from the comfort of their homes. With all theatrical releases also making their way to the streamers within a month or two, many are willing to wait and watch their films at no extra cost. That has brought a significant shift in market dynamics.
The MCU movies have followed a 45-day Disney+ release window after their theatrical launches. So, many fans waited for movies like Thor 4 to come out on Disney+. On top of that, all streaming services offer a plethora of strong content for people to binge at no extra cost. So, the magic of a theatrical experience isn’t the same as it used to be.
That has also contributed to Black Panther Wakanda Forever’s diminishing returns.
In-house competition
While the numbers of Black Panther Wakanda Forever have already dropped to low returns, they’ll go down even further when Disney’s Avatar: The Way of Water takes over all the theater screens during the holiday period. Disney has even higher expectations from James Cameron’s upcoming sequel, so its market will surely stunt Black Panther 2’s growth.
The China factor
None of the Phase 4 movies came out in China. But throughout the first 3 phases, China played a huge factor in increasing the worldwide total of MCU movies as these films have been really popular amongst the Chinese. Even though Marvel/Disney only made 20-25% out of the total income from the market, they still provided great headlines and helped with the marketing.
Black Panther made almost $106 million from China. And even if Black Panther Wakanda Forever would have made 20-30% less than that, it still could have factored in the film’s entry into the billion-dollar club. Unfortunately, the film will only manage to make somewhere in the 800-$950 million mark.
The missing T’Challa factor
After the unfortunate demise of actor Chadwick Boseman, Ryan Coogler and Marvel were in an extremely tough position. They had to decide quickly to either recast T’Challa or retire his character. Ultimately, they chose the latter option and paid their respects to Boseman.
But in both these situations, there was no wrong decision. Fans would have understood even if Coogler and Marvel had decided to go the other way. That might have been a better choice because many fans missed T’Challa in the movie.
It’s not that Letitia Wright was bad as Shuri. Her performance was remarkable, and Coogler did a wonderful job making the film all about Shuri. But her transition into Black Panther feels a little too soon. You understand why it happened the way it did, but you also can’t deny the fact that T’Challa is a much bigger character than Shuri.
Black Panther vs Namor has always been an iconic battle in the comics. And even though Shuri vs. Namor was well crafted, seeing T’Challa get replaced with Shuri still didn’t feel as relatable to the comic readers. T’Challa’s on-screen presence would have boded well in a battle with Namor.
The absence of T’Challa left a big void, which wasn’t fulfilled with Shuri and Okoye’s partnership. Namor did well on his part, but he was still an unfamiliar character to many general moviegoers. So maybe another familiar character like M’Baku should have stepped up and done more, as Black Panther Wakanda Forever was missing a strong male lead in support.
Ryan Coogler handled the impossible situation as well as he could have. He made swift changes to his original story and did justice to T’Challa as well. But Wakanda Forever couldn’t give the kind of closure to Chadwick Boseman fans that Furious 7 gave to Paul Walker fans. That’s because the film came out two years after Boseman’s demise, and most people found peace by this time.
Maybe Black Panther Wakanda Forever would have performed better if it had come out a year earlier.
MCU Fatigue
The over-saturation of MCU content isn’t entirely a thing right now. But the studio and the fans are certainly scared about it. We’ve seen 16 other MCU projects in the last two years besides Black Panther Wakanda Forever. So with a new Marvel movie or series coming out almost every 1.5 months, some form of MCU fatigue must surely have contributed to the final Phase 4 movie.
But all things considered, Black Panther Wakanda Forever should still be considered a major success because of what it managed to pull off after the kind of situation Ryan Coogler was put in. Having a ‘9’ in front of its box office total wouldn’t be an embarrassment. But Marvel is really worried about it ending in the 800s.
That’s why Marvel is making huge changes to the slate of Marvel Phase 5 and Phase 6.
