Black Panther nets $1 billion globally and reigns as king of UAE box office
The vast Wakandan sky truly is the limit, and UAE figures follow the global popularity of Ryan Coogler’s film
Accepted Hollywood wisdom has traditionally had a number of unshakeable truths. Some of these are that: Brits make the best bad guys; the good guys always win (except in the middle of a trilogy where the redemption offered at the end will be even sweeter for the despair audiences feel on exiting part two); women are too often seen, but not heard (a recent BBC study revealed the shocking lack of dialogue historically given to female characters in Best Picture Oscar-winning movies); and films with black casts don’t make money. Said Hollywood wisdom (we use that term very loosely) has just been turned on its head, however.
Last Saturday, after 26 days in cinemas, Ryan Coogler’s morethan-a-Marvel-movie Black
Panther planted itself firmly on Billionaire’s Row, having taken more than a US$1 billion at the global box office (Dh3.67bn).
The film is the 33rd to do so, an impressive 16th billion-dollar-baby for Disney, and the seventh superhero movie to clear nine zeroes – five of those have been Marvel outings.
Coogler’s movie, which stars Chadwick Boseman as the eponymous hero, and king of the fictional and advanced African nation of Wakanda, also used last weekend to leapfrog
The Dark Knight in its domestic United States market, making it the second-highest-grossing superhero film at US box offices behind The Avengers – for now.
The film opened only last weekend in the world’s second-biggest market, China, and full weekend figures were not yet available at the time of writing. The vast Wakandan sky, truly, is the limit.
What about in the UAE?
Black Panther is already the highest grossing film of the year in UAE cinemas. It has spent all four weeks since its release atop the local box office charts, and is currently the third-highest-grossing Marvel Cinematic Universe movie on UAE screens to date.
No one at the major cinema chains nor Disney wanted to hazard a guess as to how long the film/phenomenon will hang around cinemas in the Mena region and the UAE, but the general feeling seemed to be that if audiences keep coming, the film will keep screening.
Right now, with the film still sitting in its seemingly unassailable No 1 slot at the UAE box office, there’s no sign of audiences going anywhere.
Part-superhero yarn, part-socio-political diatribe and part-historic moment – the movie is, above all, a whole load of fun, and UAE audiences certainly seem to be in agreement on that.