Filmmakers Ryan Coogler and Ava DuVernay at Vulture Festival LA on Nov. 19, 2017, in Hollywood, Calif.
Photo: Charley Gallay (Getty Images)
Black Panther zoomed past the billion-dollar mark at box offices worldwide this weekend while earning the No. 1 box-office spot for the fourth week in a row as Ava DuVernay’s A Wrinkle in Time finished in second place, marking the first time that films by black directors have held the top two spots at the U.S. box office.
According to Box Office Mojo, Black Panther earned $41 million this weekend, making it the first movie with a predominantly black cast to make $1 billion worldwide, all while setting a number of other records:
Its domestic total of $562 million makes it the third-biggest 24-day total of all time, behind The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.
Ryan Coogler becomes only the second black director to direct a $1 billion-dollar-grossing movie, joining F. Gary Gray, who directed The Fate of the Furious.
Black Panther is the second-highest-grossing comic book superhero movie in North American film history. (The Avengers is No. 1, with $623 million … but seemingly not for much longer.)
Black Panther is now the seventh-biggest unadjusted domestic-grossing movie of all time.
Meanwhile, A Wrinkle in Time earned $33 million this weekend, meaning that Ava DuVernay, who joins Coogler to form the first duo of black directors to top the weekend box office, also becomes the first black woman to accomplish that feat.
Both films are distributed by Disney. The company has two blockbuster films in theaters directed by African Americans with $100 million budgets.
Meanwhile, the Wakanda box-office totals show that A Wrinkle in Time earned 7.3 billion vibraniums and won the weekend’s box office, which is understandable …
Because in Wakanda, Black Panther is a documentary.
