Black Panther wasn’t a movie. It was a movement. And it seems that its sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, will also be a movement. It is currently tracking to have the second-biggest opening of 2022, with a projected $175 million debut. That would put it behind only Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness which premiered to the tune of $187.4M in May.
Last year’s Spider-Man: No Way Home scored the highest opening of the pandemic era with $260M which was also the second-best opening of all time, minus adjustments for inflation.
The first Black Panther took in an amazing $1.3 billion at the box office. Rarely do solo comic book movies make over a billion, although it has happened, and that includes No Way Home. Black Panther was also the first comic book movie to ever be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
Critics and audiences loved it, and in particular, the film struck a chord with the Black American community, as was intended. Black celebrities bought out entire showings to be viewed by children in lower-income areas who needed to see themselves represented in a way they never had before.
Of course, Wakanda Forever faces a unique problem in that Black Panther himself, Chadwick Boseman, passed away in 2020 from colon cancer, before Wakanda Forever‘s script was even completed.
The decision was made to not recast the role of T’Challa in honor of Boseman and his amazing portrayal throughout several MCU pictures. So Wakanda Forever, as shown in the trailers, will address the passing of T’Challa. Fans are wondering who will become the new Black Panther, with the most likely candidates being Letitia Wright’s Shuri, Winston Duke’s M’Baku, Lupita Nyong’o’s Nakia, and Danai Gurira’s Okoye. (Some also speculate that there will be multiple new Black Panthers, so it could be more than one of them.)
Director Ryan Coogler returns. The cast also includes Angela Bassett as Queen Ramunda, Martin Freeman as Everett Ross, Tenoch Huerta as Namor the Sub-Mariner, Florence Kasumba as Ayo (hopefully in an expanded role from the first movie), Dominique Thorne as RiRi Williams/Ironheart, and Michaela Coel as Aneka.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever opens in theaters on November 11, 2022, and is the final installment of Phase Four. Are you checking it out on its opening weekend?
