“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” reportedly set a new box-office record this past weekend.
Per IMDBPro’s Box Office Mojo, the latest movie in the Black Panther and Marvel Phase Four franchise earned nearly $430 million in revenue at the domestic box office. With their recent success, the movie has become the highest-grossing superhero movie with an all-woman lead cast in U.S. box office history.
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” dethrones 2019’s MCU movie Captain Marvel for the spot; “Captain Marvel” previously beat out “Wonder Woman”- released in 2017- for the title. The three titles are the only three Marvel Studios movies featuring a female lead.
With their success, the movie also previously became one of three films to reign in a revenue of more than $400 million at the domestic box office. Globally, the superhero movie became the sixth-highest-grossing movie of the year.
Following the passing away of actor Chadwick Boseman, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” put Letitia Wright’s Shuri at the forefront with her taking over of the Black Panther name and suit to protect her nation. The film also paid tribute to Boseman throughout the film, incorporating themes of grief and healing through the character death of T’Challa.
Originally, the plot was supposed to be much different for the sequel to the 2018 box-office hit, “Black Panther.”
Director Ryan Coogler recently revealed the rough draft for the plot in an interview with the New York Times. According to Coogler, he and his screenwriting partner, Joe Robert Cole, intended for the movie to focus on father-son relationships with the “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” mid-credits scene revealing that T’Challa had a child.
Having already sent Boseman a completed first draft of the script, the writers were committed to exploring that relationship as T’Challa tries to navigate co-parenting after meeting his son for the first time after coming back from the Blip in “Avengers: Endgame.”
“It was going to be a father-son story from the perspective of a father because the first movie had been a father-son story from the perspective of the sons,” said Coogler, per the New York Times. “Our code name for the movie was ‘Summer Break,’ and the movie was about a summer that the kid spends with his dad. For his eighth birthday, they do a ritual where they go out into the bush and have to live off the land.
“But something happens and T’Challa has to go save the world with his son on his hip,” he added.
