Black Panther opens as most successful film with primarily non-white cast of all time
The 18th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe also breaks the old Hollywood adage that ‘black’ films don’t do well outside North America
Marvel’s Black Panther opened as the most successful movie with a primarily non-white cast of all time, industry data showed yesterday, raising hopes for a new era of storytelling by filmmakers and actors of colour.
The 18th release in the Marvel Cinematic Universe opened atop the North American box office with a stratospheric US$242.2 million take over the four-day President’s Day weekend, said box office monitor Exhibitor Relations.
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Its performance overseas brought the global total to US$426.8 million, prompting analysts to conclude it had put to bed for good an old Hollywood adage that “black” films never make the grade outside North America.
“Black Panther’s international debut [of US$184.6 million] forever slams the door on the myth that predominately black films can’t make money overseas,” said Jeff Bock, a senior box office analyst at Exhibitor Relations.
“From a box office perspective, though, I’m not sure I ever believed that. Even going back to Wesley Snipes’ Blade trilogy, that series [internationally] routinely kept pace with the [US] gross, and actually exceeded North America with the trilogy capper.”
Black Panther, directed by black filmmaker Ryan Coogler (Creed), features a star-studded, almost entirely black cast led by Chadwick Boseman as the first non-white superhero to get his own stand-alone movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise.
