<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Disney’s&nbsp;Black Panther: Wakanda Forever&nbsp;continued to top the U.S. box office charts for the fifth consecutive week by raking in an estimated $11.1 million this weekend, according to Box Office Mojo, a streak that is all but certain to be broken next week with the release of James Cameron’s highly anticipated follow-up to 2009’s&nbsp;Avatar.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



Wakanda Forever, the latest superhero film in Disney’s long-running Marvel Cinematic Universe and the direct sequel to 2018’s&nbsp;Black Panther, has recorded total domestic box office sales of $409.8 million so far.



The&nbsp;Black Panther&nbsp;sequel is only the third movie this year to breach the $400 million mark at the box office, and later this week, it will become the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2022/?ref_=bo_yl_table_1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">second-highest-grossing</a>&nbsp;movie at the domestic box office in 2022, only behind the Tom Cruise-led&nbsp;Top Gun: Maverick.



Universal Pictures’ Christmas action-comedy&nbsp;Violent Night&nbsp;finished second on the box office charts for the second consecutive weekend after bringing in an estimated $8.7 million this weekend.



Disney’s latest animated feature&nbsp;Strange World,&nbsp;which has been a major flop for the studio, continued its poor run and reported only $3.6 million to finish in a distant third place.



The lack of any major new release meant an overall grim weekend for the box office, which only managed to gross around $39 million, making it the second worst weekend of the year.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">TANGENT</h2>



The Darren Aronofsky-directed feature&nbsp;The Whale,&nbsp;which stars Brendan Fraser, managed to rake in $360,000 at the box office despite being released only across six theaters in New York and Los Angeles. According to the&nbsp;Hollywood Reporter, the movie’s per-theater weekend average of $60,000 is the best for any movie released this year, outdoing&nbsp;Everything Everywhere All at Once’s $50,000 per theater. Despite&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_whale_2022" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">middling reviews</a>&nbsp;and a somber story, online interest in the film has remained strong after reports of it receiving standing ovations across the festival circuit and the internet’s adulation of Fraser, who is in the middle of a career renaissance.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



The coming release of Disney’s&nbsp;Avatar: The Way of the Water—the highly anticipated sequel to James Cameron’s 2009 blockbuster Avatar—will almost certainly boost next weekend’s box office numbers. But how big an opening the Avatar sequel can score remains a question. The first&nbsp;Avatar&nbsp;is the fourth highest-grossing film of all time at the domestic box office and the highest of all time when global box office numbers are taken into account, with total worldwide earnings of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0499549/?ref_=bo_cso_table_4" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$2.9 billion</a>. The follow-up to Cameron’s technical and visual masterpiece has been several years in the making, although it is unclear if the franchise has managed to build any kind of a dedicated fanbase like Disney’s other mega properties like Star Wars and Marvel.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



The Black Panther sequel is close to snapping up the second-place spot in domestic box office sales for 2022 after its strong weekend performance left it just $1.5 million shy of&nbsp;Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness—another Marvel release. Once it outpaces Doctor Strange’s tally,&nbsp;Wakanda Forever&nbsp;will become the most successful Marvel Cinematic Universe distributed by Disney since 2019’s&nbsp;Avengers: Endgame—beaten only by 2021’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt10872600/?ref_=bo_se_r_1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Spider-Man: No Way Home</a>&nbsp;which was distributed by Sony. Despite its success,&nbsp;Wakanda Forever&nbsp;still trails the original Black Panther which&nbsp;<a href="https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl2992866817/?ref_=bo_we_table_1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">raked in</a>&nbsp;$202 million on its debut weekend and ended its run with $700 million in domestic box office sales.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WEEKEND BOX OFFICE DOMESTIC GROSSES (EST.)</h2>



<ol><li>Black Panther: Wakanda Forever&nbsp;(Week 5) — $11.1 million</li><li>Violent Night&nbsp;(Week 2) — $8.7 million</li><li>Strange World&nbsp;(Week 3) — $3.6 million</li><li>The Menu&nbsp;(Week 4) — $2.7 million</li><li>Devotion&nbsp;(Week 3) — $2 million</li><li>Black Adam&nbsp;(Week 8) — $1.3 million</li><li>The Fabelmans&nbsp;(Week 5) — $1.2 million</li><li>I Heard The Bells&nbsp;(Week 2) — $751,000</li><li>Spoiler Alert&nbsp;(Week 2) — $700,000</li><li>Ticket To Paradise&nbsp;(Week 8) — $600,000</li></ol>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://deadline.com/2022/12/box-office-avatar-way-of-water-wakanda-forever-second-lowest-1235195382/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Weekend Box Office At $38M, Near 2022 Low Before ‘Avatar: The Way Of Water’ Soaks Up All The Air</a>&nbsp;(Deadline)



<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/black-panther-wakanda-forever-box-office-leaps-past-1235279679/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Box Office: ‘Black Panther 2’ Leads Otherwise Dismal Weekend, Leaps Past $400M Domestically</a>&nbsp;(The Hollywood Reporter)



By Siladitya Ray, Forbes Staff

Tag: Wakanda Forever

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Weekend Box Office: ‘Wakanda Forever’ Leads For Fifth Week Ahead Of ‘Avatar’ Sequel Release