As I try to stretch out these daily Black Panther updates a little longer (because it’s hitting a few milestones next week), I wanted to take a moment to check in on a certain arbitrary milestone. To wit, the T’Challa action drama is already the second-fastest grossing movie of all time in North America, behind only Star Wars: The Force Awakens. And since it’ll pass the lifetime totals of Jurassic World ($652m in 2015) and Titanic ($658m including reissues), it cannot fall any further than “third-fastest movie” by the time it finishes. It’s still running ahead of Avatar. But since I don’t necessarily see the film snagging another $110m after Sunday, at some point it eventually must fall behind the James Cameron epic.
By the end of its seventh weekend, Black Panther should earn around $650 million domestic, taking 35% drop for an $11m weekend gross (give or take the Easter bump). At this point in time, James Cameron’s all-time global box office champion (a record it isn’t giving up anytime soon) had earned “only” $595m from a $77m Fri-Sun debut. It was still topping the box office at the end of January. Adjusted for inflation, it had earned $687m, but I digress. It wouldn’t fall more than 31.5% until its 11th weekend of release. Since Black Panther is taking regular 30-35% weekend falls (still impressive in its own right), at some point the Pandora flick is going to catch up to the Wakanda adventure.
Here’s what intrigues me: I would argue that James Cameron’s outer-space fantasy shares a couple of key traits with Ryan Coogler’s MCU actioner. And, if placed side-by-side, that Black Panther is essentially the second-fastest grossing movie since Avatar (behind only The Force Awakens) and essentially the most successful non-sequel since the James Cameron flick makes a lot of sense. In terms of unapologetic politics and in terms of transporting viewers to an idealistic fantasy world, the two mega-hits are birds of a feather.
First and foremost, the fantastical Afrofuturistic world of Wakanda is something of a one-of-a-kind destination. Allowing viewers to explore and play around in a vividly defined and explicitly detailed fantasy world within the confines of a well-told story is not something to be written off. Be it the world of Hogwarts, the world of Middle Earth or even the 1970’s James Bond movies back when their globe-trotting locales were a huge selling point, there is an inherent appeal of using the cinema as an opportunity to travel to far-off worlds as a kind of filmed travelogue.
It’s no secret that Pandora was a huge part of Avatar’s appeal, to the point where we saw stories about folks allegedly desperate to visit the imaginary world. And catching up with Avatar again (I watched it a month ago for an unrelated future post… my kids were riveted), I was struck by how it was essentially a 2.5-hour exploration. Aside from the 20-minute “final battle” climax, there isn’t a ton of action or violence in the film. It is instead a story of discovery, as we spend time in a wonderous far-away land with Jake Sully as our proverbial tour guide.
Black Panther is a more conventional action-adventure film, even if it doesn’t hit all the MCU formula tropes. While it’s not the first MCU movie to take place in a fantasy world, Wakanda is more unique unto itself compared to Asgard or the outer-space adventures of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Moreover, I will argue that Wakanda is inherently more one-of-a-kind due to its demographic make-up and how it functions as a what-if? fantasy of an African nation untouched by colonization and imperialism. The fantasy of Black Panther is aimed at demographics are not usually targeted in such far-out fantastic fare.
The other major component that Black Panther shares with Avatar is its politics. While the eventual conflict in Ryan Coogler’s film is essentially a Wakandian civil war, the film’s antagonist is a clear/inevitable product of systemic American racism. Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger is introduced as a young boy essentially abandoned by his own people in Oakland, with the implication being that America for a young black man (especially one without means) is an arguable purgatory. While America isn’t the big-bad, America’s racial sins are both accepted as an unquestioned absolute truth and an (all-too-obvious) key reason why this bright young man became a villain.
While overseas audiences aren’t just embracing Black Panther (it has earned more overseas than Transformers: The Last Knight earned overall) because they are endorsing its Wakanda rocks/America blows narrative, it’s not hurting. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the post-9/11 blockbusters, the same ones that often aimed a self-critical eye at America’s post-9/11 security state, did so well overseas. Without painting the entire overseas moviegoing demographic with too broad of a brush, I will say that when a movie like Quantum of Solace, Captain America: The Winter Soldier or Star Trek Into Darkness looks inward at (or overtly condemns) American politics, it’s not looking outward at any other nations or cultures.
Avatar was arguably the most blatant of the bunch. It was a heart-on-its-sleeve anti-imperialism parable where audiences around the world thrilled to see an outmatched and overwhelmed indigenous population rise and throw out the western imperialist aggressors. Even as the “American” bad guys were depicted as private contractors, no one was fooled as Avatar became what amounted to the biggest of many big Iraq war parables. It was a primal story, with a member of the oppressive class being exposed to the other culture and realizing that the indigenous enemy has a human face and thus switching sides. Avatar was the right movie at the right time.
The openly political 2000’s-era blockbusters were the product of filmmakers who wanted to use the big-budget cinematic landscape to discuss these post-9/11 issues. But they also crafted a generation of would-be blockbusters that were, in their own skewed way, as inoffensive to the rest of the world as Independence Day or Batman Forever. No matter if (some) Americans viewed The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers as a NeoCon parable that justified the 2003 Iraq invasion, but overseas audiences knew who Saruman’s invading hordes were intended to represent. Ditto Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds telling an Iraq occupation parable from the POV of the Iraqis.
So, viewed in that sense, both as a chance to visit and indulge in a truly original fantasy world and as an unapologetically political flick that doesn’t exactly view modern-day America in the best light, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Black Panther is playing somewhat like Avatar. Without making quality judgments (I rather adore both flicks), it shouldn’t be that much of a shock that Black Panther is essentially playing about as well as any non-sequel we’ve seen since Avatar. They aren’t identical movies, but they share just enough in common, on the outside and on the inside, to make somewhat interesting companion pieces.
