It’s age of the super hero film. The late Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther part 1 is still the highest grossing ‘single’ super hero film internationally, ever. Even though he is gone his legacy still lives and looms large in the sequel.
Over weekend the long awaited movie Avatar Part 2 hit US theaters to much fanfare and even though the film debuted exceptionally well at $134,000,000 USD, that is way down from Black Panther Part 2’s $181,339,761 first weekend. Avatar should have easily bested Black Panther, it had all the main original casts, characters and director back for it’s sequel.
Avatar Part One (released in 2009) is the 4th biggest movie of all time, it’s grossed more than $2.9 billion since. That James Cameron directed film had more than a dozen years between the films to garner a much bigger fan base than the Panther’s. Why couldn’t it beat Marvel’s highest earning super hero?
Avatar Part 2 will more than likely end up beating the Ryan Coogler directed Black Panther sequel’s gross – due mainly international audiences’ penchant for mega Hollywood excess – at the international box office. But Ryan surely delivered something of a miracle without his film’s lead star.
Just try to imagine an Iron Man movie without Robert Downey Jr., would you go to see that film?
