Black Panther, the first movie featuring a black superhero stormed into the billion dollar box office receipts club, becoming the 33rd such movie, earning $1.08 billion dollars worldwide, in less than a month since its release.At 24 days, it is a joint eighth in the list of movies to earn $1 billion in the shortest possible time - sharing the space with Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War.
The billionaire movie club was founded 20 years back by the Titanic, which took nearly one year to cross the 10-figure mark. The movie, directed by James Cameron - who, incidentally, directed the first billion dollar and the first double-billion dollar movie, the Titanic and the Avatar - has earned nearly $2.2 billion worldwide.
There are only three movies which have earned over $2 billion at the box office, led by the Avatar, which came within breathing distance of becoming the first movie to gross $3 billion at the box office, before it ran out of steam.Avatar earned $2.8 billion, followed by Titanic with Star Wars: The Force Awakens bringing up the rear with $2.07 billion.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the seventh installment in the Star Wars series, holds the record for the fastest to clock $1 billion in box office receipts - reaching the 10-figure milestone in just 12 days, about half the time it took Black Panther to earn a similar amount.
Black Panther is just one of three movie in the billionaire box office club which has earned more from US and Canada than it earned from overseas box office receipts. It earned 47.9 per cent or $516.6 million dollars from its worldwide release while 52.1 per cent of its earnings, or $562 million, came from US and Canada theatrical screenings.That equation, however, could change quickly in the coming weeks as the movie is still being screened at theatres.