(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- Black Panther, the Marvel Studios superhero flick that opened on Friday, is stalking its way into the cultural zeitgeist in ways few movies ever do.
The Walt Disney Co.-produced picture, the first big Hollywood action movie with a majority black cast, took in an estimated $242 million over the four-day Presidents Day weekend in North America and $426.6 million worldwide, roaring past projections and putting it on track to be one of the top-grossing films of the year. Even before its release, the film was breaking records: Fandango, the online ticket-selling site, said Black Panther generated more advance sales than any film without “Star Wars” in its title. More than half of all African Americans in the country intended to see the movie in a theater, according to the polling firm YouGov Omnibus.
Elizabeth Frank, chief content and programming officer for AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., the nation’s largest theater chain, says the film drew way more than the typical Thursday night “fanboy” crowd, pulling in families and other groups for Sunday matinees. Many arrived in superhero costumes or traditional African ensembles. “The most exciting part about the sales we have on Black Panther right now is that they are big and they are broad,” she says.
For the movie theater industry, which saw attendance fall to a 25-year low in 2017, Black Panther delivered a long-awaited shot in the arm. Many of last year’s most disappointing releases were franchises and sequels, and for Disney, the 18th film in what the company calls its Marvel Cinematic Universe represents an effort to promote characters beyond the stalwarts Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America. Disney devoted $200 million to the film, the highest production budget for a Marvel nonsequel. “This is the beginning of the next era for Marvel movies,” says Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at the research site Box Office Pro.
Black Panther tells the story of T’Challa, an African prince endowed with superpowers played by Chadwick Boseman (Get On Up, 42), who returns to his fictional homeland of Wakanda to thwart an evil rival played by Michael B. Jordan, who worked with director Ryan Coogler on both of his previous feature films: 2013’s Fruitvale Station and 2015’s Creed. Lupita Nyong’o, who won a best supporting actress Oscar for 12 Years a Slave, plays T’Challa’s love interest. The soundtrack by rapper Kendrick Lamar will likely premiere at No. 1 on the Hot 200 album chart, Billboard predicts.
According to Reed Tucker—author of 2017’s Slugfest, about the rivalry between Marvel and DC Comics—legend has it that when the comic book Black Panther was introduced in 1966, Marvel executives thought a black superhero would be too controversial on a cover. In response, Marvel illustrator Jack Kirby designed the character a face-covering mask. “We’ve gone from that to now someone spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a movie where he’s front and center,” Tucker says. “That’s pretty great.”
To contact the authors of this story: Anousha Sakoui in Los Angeles at asakoui@bloomberg.net, Christopher Palmeri in Los Angeles at cpalmeri1@bloomberg.net, Laura Bolt in New York at lbolt86@gmail.com.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jillian Goodman at jgoodman74@bloomberg.net.
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