Box Office Predictions: Black Panther Wakanda Forever ready to dominate

This weekend sees the limited releases of Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans (which our own Chris Bumbray was lucky enough to see at the Toronto International Film Festival, giving it a near perfect 9/10 rating) and the Will Ferrell/ Ryan Reynolds/ Octavia Spencer musical Christmas Carol retelling Spirited (check out JimmyO’s 7/10 rating here). Fabelmans begins its push into awards season on 4 screens in New York and Los Angeles before expanding on November 23, while Spirited will appear on limited screens before premiering on Apple TV+ on November 18.

And that’s about it for this week. Let us know what you plan on seeing this weekend in the comments section…

Oh wait, there is one other new release hitting theaters this weekend. The sequel to a film that grossed $1.3 billion worldwide. The sequel to a film that not only won the Best Cast award at the SAG Awards, but went on to become the first ever Superhero film nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. This weekend sees the highly anticipated release of: Kazaam 2! Wait, that’s not right! Although a sequel to Shaquille O’Neal’s seminal 1996 rapping genie film would be amazing!

But in all seriousness, this weekend brings to theaters the highly anticipated Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. This release has so many things going for it: it is the sequel to one of the MCU’s biggest hits, both commercially and critically; it is coming at a time when the box office is direly in need of a must see movie; and most importantly: it is the continuation of a film series that tragically lost its main star in August 2020 and many people (myself included) can not wait to see how the filmmakers handle that loss as well as pay our own respects to an incredibly talented actor that was taken away far too soon. 

The good news is early reactions to the film are overwhelmingly positive with our own JimmyO giving the film a rare 10/10 perfecto-mundo rating. The original Black Panther opened to over $202 million in February 2018, however this one is actually trending slightly behind that one in advanced ticket sales with around $45 million. Those numbers put it behind Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness which opened to $187.4 million back in May, yet slightly ahead of Thor: Love and Thunder which opened to $144.1 back in July. So the smart money here would be to just split the difference and say Wakanda Forever will open in between those two. But as any of you reading these box office predictions from week to week may know, I like to go a bit bold with my predictions and I think Wakanda Forever has the potential to get to the $190-$200 million mark. In my most humble of opinions, this movie just has too much anticipation behind it to fall short of Doctor Strange (of course if my second week prediction for Black Adam is any indication, sometimes I can be way off!)

The thing that may hurt this movie’s box office returns is its runtime. Coming in at a whopping 2 hours and 41 minutes, Wakanda Forever represents the second longest film in the MCU, with only Avengers: Endgame ahead of it at 3 hours and 2 minutes. That length will limit the number of showings each theater can have. In comparison Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness featured a run time of 2 hours and 6 minutes while Thor: Love and Thunder clocked in at 2 hours and 5 minutes. Even the first Black Panther had a leaner run time of 2 hours and 14 minutes.

Regardless of all of those minor quibbles, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever should easily become the highest grossing November release of all time, beating out The Hunger Games: Catching Fire which opened to $158 million in 2013. 

With the release of a new comic book film in the market place, you can expect the already dismal numbers for Black Adam to take a pretty severe beating. At a cost of $200 million and no China release in the pipeline, Black Adam does not appear to be the course correction the DCEU desperately needed. Time will tell if new DC Guru James Gunn can right the ship.

Will you be heading to see Black Panther this weekend? Or maybe now is the time to check out something like Ticket To Paradise? Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to check back on Saturday when we give a brief update on the weekend’s numbers.

Box Office Predictions

1. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever– $200 million
2. Black Adam– $9 million
3. Ticket To Paradise- $7 million
4. Smile- $4 million
5. Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile- $2 million