‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Might Not Have Enough Stones To Beat ‘Black Panther’ At The Box Office

As we covered in our weekend box office report, “Avengers: Infinity War” broke all sorts of major records over the weekend. The two biggest records being the domestic and global weekend grosses. Now, with a worldwide total of $857 million through Wednesday, the superhero epic is showing no signs of slowing down as we approach weekend #2. But even with all those records and headlines, ‘Infinity War’ might not have enough stones to beat Marvel Studios’ own “Black Panther.”

Now, before people lose their minds and think this is completely crazy, what we are talking about is the domestic totals of the two films. Even though “Black Panther” has an incredible worldwide gross of over $1.3 billion, ‘Infinity War’ will no doubt beat that. The number we’re going to discuss is the domestic total, which for “Black Panther, sits at $688 million through 11 weekends and is, by far, the biggest domestic total for a Marvel Studios film.

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To fully understand how impressive that $688 million number is, you have to talk about “Black Panther’s” box office “legs.” After debuting with an incredible $202 million, ‘Panther’ never had a weekend-to-weekend drop of more than 44%. And as the film hits its home release window next week, the film ranks #5 in the most recent weekend’s box office report. Not only is that impressive for a superhero movie, these are stats that are venturing into uncharted territory.

That’s the problem that faces ‘Infinity War.’ Regardless of its massive opening weekend, there’s significant doubt that the film will have the “legs” to beat ‘Panther’ domestically. No, not even with 40-something characters and 10 years of hype, ‘Infinity War’ might not catch King T’Challa and that’s due to one thing – competition.

“Black Panther” had the luxury of opening in February, which allowed the film to rule the box office for 5 straight weekends before getting beat. Then after that, the film never dropped out of the top 5 until the weekend of April 13, which was “Black Panther’s” 9th weekend of release. Unfortunately for ‘Infinity War,’ the superhero epic only has 3 weeks of clear runway ahead of it until the next juggernaut, “Deadpool 2,” hits theaters (with a projected opening of approx. $150 million). Even if “Deadpool 2” wasn’t enough to slow down ‘Infinity War,’ then surely “Solo: A Star Wars Story” (projected opening of approx. $170 million) will have the power to bring Thanos to his knees the following week.

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So, realistically, we’re looking at 3 weeks of amazing numbers for ‘Avengers,’ followed by a couple rough weeks leading into the crazy months of June and July. There’s no doubt that ‘Infinity War’ will continue to dominate globally, but we should see the domestic total for the film start to slow down drastically as May comes to a close.

Now, we aren’t saying that it’s completely impossible for ‘Infinity War’ to catch “Black Panther,” but it’s definitely going to need some help. Perhaps if “Deadpool 2” and ‘Solo’ underwhelm, then people will continue to go back to Thanos wreaking havoc on the universe. Until then, don’t be shocked if T’Challa reign over the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues.