Surprise! Marvel has the top two movies at the box office this year

Leave it to Marvel to brave the pandemic and come out with the two highest-grossing movies at the box office for 2021 so far (via Box Office Mojo). Black Widow and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings are leading the calendar year so far at the domestic box office as the final three months of the year feature releases that COULD change these rankings by year’s end.

With the arrival of Black Widow in July this year, Marvel’s winning streak picked up where it left off in 2019 with the movie very quickly becoming the biggest movie of a very subdued year for theatrical releases due to the pandemic. Black Widow’s current domestic gross is $183.3 million but coming on its heels is Shang-Chi, which is now on target to be the first movie to take over $200 million at the domestic box office this year. The film has a current running total of $176.8 million and if it continues to have minimal declines in the next few weeks, the $200 million target will be easily acquired.

There are big movies on deck in the coming months that could challenge these films for the top spot. In October alone we have Venom: Let There Be Carnage, No Time To Die, Halloween Kills, and Dune. November brings as Eternals and Ghostbusters: Afterlife while December has the highly anticipated release of Spider-Man: No Way Home. Any of those films has a shot at claiming box office victory so it will be interesting to witness how all of those movies perform when they’re released.

Do YOU think any of the upcoming films can unseat Black Widow and Shang-Chi from the top earners at the box office? Maybe the only movies that could top them is Marvel’s own Eternals or Spider-Man: No Way Home later this year.