Hollywood 2018 Quarter 1 box-office report: Black Panther shows it's superhero films to the rescue

Hollywood has been banking on big-budget superhero movies, grand dystopian nightmares, giant pop-culture franchises, and captivating animated adventures to make the big bucks — and these haven’t disappointed so far. In 2018, Hollywood has seen its films mint money across the globe; and while some of these were movies expected to be blockbusters, there have been a handful of surprise box-office hits.

2018 has been a big year for Marvel, again. The clear winner thus far, has been Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther. This Marvel superhero movie, which features a cast of predominantly black actors, became the only movie in 2018, so far, to cross the coveted $1 billion mark.

Black Panther, which stars Chadwick Boseman, Michael B Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o and Martin Freeman, raked in a worldwide total of $1,323,487,044  becoming the highest grossing movie of 2018, and the 9th highest grossing film of all time . In 2017, one Hollywood movie was able to crack the list of top-10 highest grossing movies of all time — Star Wars: The Last Jedi sitting on the tenth position with a total worldwide gross of  $1,322,211,861 .

The second highest grossing Hollywood movie of 2018 is Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One with a total worldwide collection of  $521,581,326 . This figure is less than half of Black Panther’s total worldwide collection. Made on a budget of $175 million, Ready Player One’s box-office numbers have been in-line with estimates .

In the third position is the final installment in the Fifty Shades franchise, Fifty Shades Freed. While the movie barely managed to touch the $100 million mark at the American box-office, Fifty Shades Freed comfortably grossed a total of  $368,307,760  worldwide. The third and final movie in the Fifty Shades franchise, Fifty Shades Freed is also its lowest grossing. (Fifty Shades of Grey and Fifty Shades Darker have a worldwide gross of  $571,006,128  and  $381,128,783  respectively).

The fourth highest grossing Hollywood movie in 2018 is Peter Rabbit. Directed by Will Gluck (known for Easy A, Annie), this live-action animated movie, based on the fictional character of the same name, made a total of  $309,973,563  worldwide. It is one of the two animated movies to feature on the top-10 highest grossing movies of 2018. In 2017, Despicable Me, on number four, was the only animated movie to make the top-10 list. Disney-Pixar’s animated super-hit Coco ended up at the 11th position in 2017.

The third and final instalment of the Maze Runner franchise, titled Maze Runner: The Death Cure, ended up at the fifth position raking in a total of $284,786,443  worldwide. This, again, is the lowest grossing movie in the franchise with the previous two movies, The Maze Runner and Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, having made  $348,319,861 and  $312,325,103  respectively.

Rounding up the top-10 are Rampage, Pacific Rim Uprising, Tomb Raider, Paddington 2, and A Quiet Place.

In the sixth position is Dwayne ’the Rock’ Johnson’s Rampage. As expected, Rampage became a box-office success collecting  $283,000,066 , so far. In 2017, Dwayne Johnson starred in two top-10 highest grossing movies of the year: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and The Fate of the Furious.

On the seventh position is Pacific Rim Uprising with a total collection of  $282,153,740 . The first Pacific Rim movie, released in 2013 and directed by Guillermo del Toro, had a total collection of $411,002,906 worldwide.

On the eighth, ninth and tenth positions are: the Lara Croft reboot Tomb Raider starring Alicia Vikander with a total worldwide gross of  $269,018,444 ; Paddington 2 with a total worldwide gross of $224,353,866 ; and A Quiet Place with a total worldwide gross of  $207,158,711 .

A Quiet Place, which is John Krasinski’s directorial debut, was made on a budget of $17 million and has sky-rocketed in collections worldwide based on its strong critical reception and unique story concept.

In 2017, there were four movies that crossed the $1 billion mark: Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Beauty and the Beast, The Fate of the Furious and Despicable Me 3. Other than Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which was released in December last year, all other billion-plus grossing movies were released in the first half of 2017.

Movies like Insidious: The Last Key performed exceedingly well with a worldwide gross of  $166,689,842  on a small budget of $10 million. Black comedy film Game Night starring Jason Bateman proved to be a stellar success with a worldwide gross of $108,505,198  on a budget of $37 million. Liam Neeson’s action-thriller The Commuter, and Gerard Butler-50 Cent starrer Den of Thieves performed as per expectations with the former crossing the $100 million mark in worldwide gross. Den of Thieves, on the other hand, managed to make $79,547,622  worldwide.

Jennifer Lawrence’s Red Sparrow, with a worldwide gross of  $144,948,738 , and the Oprah Winfrey-Reese Witherspoon-Mindy Kaling starrer A Wrinkle in Time, with a worldwide gross of $122,871,421  on a budget of $100 million _,_ have been two major disappointments for Hollywood in 2018.

Just like 2017 was dominated by superhero movies and well-established franchises (Spider-Man: Homecoming, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Thor: Ragnarok and Wonder Woman), 2018 will also count on the same for guaranteed box-office glory.

With Black Panther already crossing the billion dollar mark, it’s time for Avengers: Infinity War (releasing 27 April; Avengers: Age of Ultron made $1,405,403,694 worldwide), Deadpool 2 (releasing 18 May; Deadpool made  $783,112,979  worldwide), Ant-Man and the Wasp (releasing 6 July; Ant-Man made $519,311,965  worldwide), and the first ever Aquaman movie with Game of Thrones’ Jason Momoa playing the titular character to ensure a successful 2018 for Hollywood.