Advance ticket sales through Sunday for Disney-Marvel Studios’ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever stand at $45M, about 20% behind Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness at the same point in time and 40% ahead of Thor: Love & Thunder.
Doctor Strange 2 before its domestic opening of $187.4M had $85M in advance sales, while Thor: Love & Thunder had banked $48M of its $144.1M domestic opening by its preview Thursday. Before debuting to $202M over 3-days in February 2018, Black Panther had $55M in advance tickets.
Don’t get obsessed about the percent behind or ahead of advance ticket sales. Look at the leg out opening factor there on the first Black Panther. Plus, the sequel has so much heat, expect walk-up business. Wakanda Forever is expected to open to $175M-$185M, for a projected global debut of $355M-$365M. Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score stands at 90%.
We’ve heard advance ticket sales aren’t front-loaded for Black Panther 2 and are evenly spread throughout the upcoming holiday weekend. Fifty-two percent of K-12 schools are off Friday for Veterans Day, so look for a boost stateside at the box office.
On today’s Disney earnings call, CEO Bob Chapek, who has often touted meeting the demands of the consumer in-home with Disney+, beamed at the top that the studio has “big plans for the big screen in 2023” before giving a shoutout to some of the big films.