Disney’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has dominated the French box office on its first week of release, grossing €15.1m ($15.6m) since opening on November 9 and garnering 1.8 million admissions to become the biggest opener in France this year.
The debut week of November 9-15 has knocked Top Gun: Maverick (1.5 million admissions) and Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (1.4 million tickets) off the 2022 top slots.
Despite threats from the studio to pull the film from French theatres ahead of its release to protest France’s windowing laws, Disney opted to launch the film as planned on Wednesday November 9. It catapulted to the top of the box office that day, selling 243,470 tickets, a 36% jump from ticket sales over the first Black Panther (178,202 admissions).
The film made $2.2m on its opening day, the fourth-highest total of 2022 to date behind Minions 2: Rise Of Gru (Universal), Doctor Strange: In The Multiverse Of Madness (Disney) and Top Gun: Maverick (Paramount).
The film gained rapid momentum through the long French holiday weekend. It opened far ahead of other new titles on its first day – local French-language film Clovis Cornillac’s Colors Of Fire (Gaumont) with 43,809 tickets sold and Armageddon Time (Universal Pictures International France) with 17,000 tickets sold in first 24 hours on 307 copies – but didn’t set any records.
However, the long holiday weekend in France helped to drive audiences en masse to theatres. November 11 was Armistice Day in France and the national holliday proved fruitful for the film, which sold more than 400,000 tickets on that day alone followed by similar totals for Saturday and Sunday.
The sequel has already surpassed the original film’s release that saw 1.1 million tickets sold in the first full week in theatres in February of 2018, and could see it rival the French box office’s current overall 2022 champion Top Gun: Maverick (Paramount) with 6.6 million admissions.
In a not-very-close second for the weekly admissions tally from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was Colors Of Fire with 302,030 tickets sold, followed by Nicolas Bedos’ Cannes title Mascarade with 202,319, just ahead of Olivier Dahan’s French-language Simone Veil biopic Simone: Voyage Of A Century (Warner Bros) with 200,829. Next comes James Gray’s surprise addition to the top titles Armageddon Time with 155,547 and former box office champion Black Adam (Warner Bros.) with 151,174.
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France’s record-breaking figures for Wakanda Forever are especially notable given the brouhaha surrounding the film’s near non-release in the territory. Disney threatened not to release the title in France at all due to what they claim are outdated release windows that prevent titles like this one from being released on Disney+ for 17 months after their theatrical run. The US studio had threatened to send the highly anticipated title straight to streaming due to France’s strict windowing laws which they called “anti-consumer”.
As it stands, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will be available to Disney+ subscribers in France in spring 2024, 17 months after its theatrical release.
Disney has several upcoming titles scheduled for French theatrical release through the end of the year including Searchlight Pictures’ The Menu on November 23 and Avatar: The Way Of Water set to be released in France on Wednesday December 14 ahead of its Friday December 16 release in the US and other territories.
However, as previously announced, Disney will send its upcoming animated film Strange World straight to Disney+ in France, forgoing a theatrical release in protest against the strict windowing laws. The film was originally set for a November 23 release in France and Disney has not yet set a launch date on the Disney+ platform in France.
Wakanda Forever had earned an estimated $330m worldwide with $150m coming from international ticket sales by the start of the week. France was second among international markets for the opening period and made up 9% of the film’s international total with it $13.7m, offering further proof that the studio stands to lose theatrical revenue from the territory if it opts to bypass theatrical distribution for blockbuster titles like this one.
Ryan Coogler’s original Black Panther film earned a colossal $1.3bn at the global box office during its 2018 run with more than $33.1m coming from France. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever already boasts nearly double the amount of tickets sold for the original film (850, 647) in its first five days.
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