Black Panther becomes the fifth Marvel film to cross $1 billion mark at global box office

Wakanda's reign shows no signs of waning. Disney owned Marvel's megahit Black Panther has passed the $1 billion mark at the global box office.

The studio said on Saturday that the milestone is based on Disney's estimate of ticket sales. The announcement comes on the 26th day of release for the blockbuster.

A still from Black Panther. Marvel

Disney notes that Black Panther is the fifth film in its Marvel Cinematic Universe to reach the milestone. The others are The Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Iron Man 3, and Captain America: Civil War.

The film has made $521 million domestically in the US, becoming the No 2 superhero release of all time, surpassing Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight.

Black Panther has become something of a phenomenon following a record-shattering opening weekend. It is also only the fourth movie ever to make more than $100 million in its second weekend, joining the elite club behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($149.2 million), and ahead of Jurassic World ($106.6 million) and The Avengers ($103.1 million). It also has the third-highest third weekend gross ever.

Directed by Ryan Coogler, Black Panther features an almost entirely black cast led by Chadwick Boseman as the first non-white superhero to get his own standalone movie in the franchise.

Starring alongside the likes of Michael B Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o and Daniel Kaluuya, Boseman plays the titular superhero also known as T'Challa, king and protector of Wakanda, a technologically advanced, affluent, never-colonized utopia in Africa.

With inputs from agencies