Will Black Panther Beat Infinity War At The Box Office?
Simply put, Black Panther got the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s 10th anniversary off to an explosive start, and things should only get bigger from here. Next on the docket is Infinity War, which is 10 years and 18 films in the making. Finally bringing big bad Thanos to the forefront, directors Joe and Anthony Russo unite basically every single living MCU hero for the culmination of a massive arc that seemed overly ambitious just a handful of years ago. Infinity War will undoubtedly be one of the top earners in 2018, but will it top Panther? That’s what we’re analyzing here.
THE AVENGERS AT THE BOX OFFICE
It’s easy to forget now, but the MCU had rather humble beginnings during the Phase 1 days. With the exception of the first two Iron Man installments, none of the studio’s films were exactly world-beaters commercially. The Incredible Hulk remains the franchise’s worst performer with only $134.8 million domestically, while the first Thor ($181 million) and Captain America ($176.6 million) were modestly successful in the summer of 2011. These numbers paled in comparison to Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy and did not top the latter two installments of the original X-Men trilogy. At this point, the MCU was making money, but its stars were living up to their “B level” status.
That all changed when the original Avengers kicked off the summer 2012 season with a then record-breaking $207.4 million in its opening weekend – the first time a film brought in $200+ million in only three days. The reasoning for this was twofold. Not only did the movie live up to the hype with strong word-of-mouth, it was also something audiences had never seen before. It combined four different franchises into a mega crossover, revolutionizing Hollywood’s business model (for better and worse) by illustrating the potential of the “shared movie universe.” The Avengers was also the first realistic challenger for Avatar‘s all-time domestic mark, finishing its run with an astonishing $623.3 million in the United States. It is still the MCU’s top film in terms of box office numbers.
Things changed slightly when the sequel, Avengers: Age of Ultron came out in 2015. Though there’s no denying the film was a commercial success, it could not match the figures posted by its predecessor. For the opening weekend, Ultron grossed $191.2 million and ended with a domestic total of $459 million – $164.3 million less than the first Avengers. The most likely culprit for this was the mixed response to the film itself, but there’s no denying the novelty of seeing these heroes unite in one movie had worn off a bit. That “novelty” theory gained more credence in 2016, when Captain America: Civil War (an Avengers film in spirit with two battling superhero teams) debuted with $179.1 million en route to a $408 million total. It’s true each of these crossed $1 billion worldwide, but there were “diminishing returns” (relatively speaking), and Iron Man 3 made more globally than Civil War.
This provides us with a ballpark for how Infinity War should do when it comes out. Odds are, it won’t be able to surpass the first Avengers, and there’s even some question if it will reach $200 million in its first three days. Yes, there have been five such weekends in six years, but that’s still an incredibly tough figure to reach that needs perfect circumstances. Two of the films to hit that mark are Star Wars films (which are beasts unto themselves with no realistic comparison) and another was the first Jurassic Park movie in nearly 15 years, one that tapped into nostalgia for the landmark original. As we’ve established, Marvel’s two big team-ups since Avengers did not hit $200 million, so it’ll be interesting to see how Infinity War opens. There’s a sizable chance Black Panther has the better opening weekend of the two.
PREDICTING INFINITY WAR’S LEGS
Black Panther should have very strong legs. Word-of-mouth will continue to carry it to astronomical heights in the early stages of its run, and it also doesn’t have much in the way of competition. Looking ahead on the release schedule, the earliest Panther may lose its hold on the #1 position is the weekend of March 9, when genre film A Wrinkle In Time opens. If not then, it will likely be topped by Tomb Raider during the weekend of March 16. That means Coogler’s film should stay on top of the charts for about a month.
In contrast, Infinity War faces some of the summer’s top tentpoles in the very crowded month of May. Deadpool 2 premieres on May 18, followed by Solo: A Star Wars Story on May 25. Both are part of successful franchises with large fan bases, meaning they should do well at the box office. The first Deadpool broke records with a $363 million domestic total, while the Star Wars property has topped the annual U.S. charts for three consecutive years. One can’t expect Solo to perform in line with The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi, but people will still turn out for another fun adventure in the galaxy far, far away. These two movies are going to take away considerable business from Infinity War (especially if they’re good), which will undercut the MCU film’s legs.
Loki Holding the Tesseract in Avengers Infinity War Trailer Will Black Panther Beat Infinity War At The Box Office?
This is going to boil down to two factors: Infinity War‘s word-of-mouth and its box office tracking. In the case of the latter, it should be fine. Though there are some blockbuster hopefuls in March, April is essentially void of four-quadrant tentpole fare, meaning the marketplace will be starved for something along the lines of a Marvel movie (much like they were after a slow January drummed up demand for Black Panther). The former is a more fascinating scenario. Kevin Feige prides himself in the MCU’s perfect batting average, but there are concerns about Infinity War‘s potential quality since it’ll be balancing no fewer than 76 characters and multitude of storylines. Some people thought there wouldn’t be enough screen time for each of the founding Avengers in the first movie (and, as Hawkeye showed, there wasn’t), so pulling this off is difficult to say the least. The Russos did bring Team Cap and Team Iron Man to the big screen in one movie, but now they’re adding several Black Panther characters, Doctor Strange, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and more.
In the five summers since The Avengers, the movie that debuted in the first weekend of May earned an average of $156.5 million during its first three days and $373.7 million for its entire domestic run. That sample size is dragged down considerably by the underwhelming Amazing Spider-Man 2 ($202.8 million total), meaning Infinity War is in prime position to do well at the box office. How well remains to be seen, but given the factors it wouldn’t be surprising if Black Panther actually made more than Infinity War considering how the former has seized the zeitgeist like few films have before. Either way, Marvel will emerge as 2018’s big box office winner.
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