Battle at the Box Office 11/14/22

As expected, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever utterly dominated the box office this past weekend and delivered the 2nd biggest opening weekend of the year, just shy of fellow MCU movie Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Wakanda Forever took in $180 million for its opening weekend, which already puts it at #8 on the 2022 domestic chart.  It’s the 8th best opening ever for the MCU, although it is down from Black Panther, which made $202 million for its opening weekend back in 2018.  It’s flanked by Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Captain America: Civil War on the all-time domestic MCU openings chart.  Worldwide, the movie has $330.3 million, putting it at #14 on the 2022 worldwide chart.  Wakanda Forever also broke the November openings record, taking the top spot over The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, which made $158 million in 2013 and was the previous best November opening.

Black Adam dropped to second with another $8 million.  It has $150.5 million domestically so far and $351.3 million worldwide.  It is currently the #10 highest-grossing film domestically for 2022 and the #13 highest-grossing film worldwide for 2022.

Ticket to Paradise remained in third place with another $5.9 million, bringing it to $56.3 million domestically and $152.1 million worldwide.  Smile and Prey for the Devil rounded out the top 5.

One Piece Film: Red took a massive nosedive in its second weekend, dropping 84% with $1.4 million.  It has $12.7 million domestic for two weeks out.  Other big anime domestic releases have seen a similar massive drop, suggesting that the hardcore audience all comes out on the opening weekend, and then there may not be a lot of interest in subsequent weekends.

TAR and Armageddon Time both made it into the top 10 at 9th and 10th respectively.  Both were just outside the top 10 last week but made enough this weekend to push onto the chart.

Wakanda Forever also took the Per Theater average for the weekend, with $40,946 in each of the 4,396 theaters it was playing in.  The Fablemans was actually a close second in the Per Theater average count, making $40,395 in 4 theaters over the weekend.