Black Adam’s Dwayne Johnson Celebrates Black Panther 2’s Massive Debut

Black Adam star Dwayne Johnson praises Black Panther: Wakanda Forever after the movie’s massive opening-weekend box office. Within the last month, both the DC Universe and Marvel Cinematic Universe have come out with their own respective, high-profile comic book films, with DC releasing the Johnson-led Black Adam film in late October. Just three weeks later, Marvel released Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther sequel, which took on the difficult task of continuing the story of its predecessor without its main character, T’Challa, due to the tragic loss of lead actor Chadwick Boseman in 2020.

Following the film’s successful opening weekend, Johnson takes to his official Twitter account to congratulate the cast and crew of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. In the tweet, he also expresses his own excitement for seeing the film. Check out the tweet below:

How Black Adam & Black Panther 2’s Box Office Compare So Far

Johnson’s tweet highlights the fact that the Black Panther sequel has broken the record for the highest domestic opening weekend ever in the month of November with $181 million, surpassing 2013’s Hunger Games: Catching Fire, which earned $158 million. This is the eighth largest among all MCU openings, just three spots behind the first film’s $202 million opening weekend. Meanwhile, despite Black Adam‘s $67 million being the highest opening gross ever for a film with Johnson in the lead role, the movie’s entire domestic total so far, about $150 million, has already been surpassed by Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Coogler’s MCU sequel currently stands at $331 million worldwide, which is also not far from surpassing Black Adam’s $351 million three-week total.

Despite Black Adam not reaching the financial heights that DC may have been hoping for, it is nice to see Johnson showing his support for people at Marvel, and the Black Panther 2 team in particular, considering how close the two releases were. However, it does not come as a surprise that Johnson is opting to support the film rather than treat it as competition, as the actor has expressed appreciation for Marvel in the past, as well as a desire to grow DC without focusing on the rivalry between the two companies. Additionally, Johnson has expressed optimism in the past for an MCU and DCU crossover, showing he is more in favor of the success of both franchises, rather than having one dominate the other. That being said, it is even more admirable to see Johnson not only show love towards a competing film, but to one that has as much real-world emotional weight as Black Panther: Wakanda Forever did.

While fans of both franchises will inevitably compare the box office results of Black Adam and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the fact remains that the massive success of the latter is a positive step forward for the industry. With box office numbers improving since the pandemic but also still in the process of recovering, results like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever‘s are a win for all audiences, no matter which franchise they feel more loyal to. With Marvel films massively rebounding in the box office during the past year, audiences can hope that the same can continue to happen with others as well.