Black Panther: Wakanda Forever passed another big milestone at the box office this weekend. The Marvel Studios sequel rolled past $600 million globally and now sits as the 7th biggest film of the year. Just ahead of it is Thor: Love and Thunder, but the Wakandan adventure is poised to overtake it and a number of other features in the franchise. It’s not a stretch to believe that the Black Panther sequel could pass Iron Man 2, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Thor: The Dark World and Doctor Strange, which all come in under $700 million. Ryan Coogler’s epic has poised itself to be the second most successful MCU Phase 4 movie behind Spider-Man: No Way Home. Unfortunately for the studio, not releasing in China likely hurt its ability to get to $1 billion faster. But, that might not end up mattering as the numbers continue in a strong direction as Avatar: The Way of Water looms at the end of the year. For a sequel without the lead star of the first movie, this is a big deal for Marvel Studios and the state of the MCU headed into Phase 5.
