‘Black Panther’ Smashes Box Office Records and Hollywood Myths<br />“You feel like you’re getting the opportunity of seeing something fresh, being a part of something new, which<br />I think all audiences want to experience regardless of whether they are of African descent or not.”<br />[ALSO READ: Wakanda is a Fake Country, But The African Language in Black Panther is Real]<br />But no one quite knew how “Black Panther” would perform overseas.<br />Big-budget films that focus on black characters have long been held back by the Hollywood argument — a ridiculous one, in the eyes of many critics —<br />that foreign audiences have little interest in films with largely black casts.<br />Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, took a personal interest in “Black Panther,” approving its $200 million production budget (at least 30 percent more than budgets for other Marvel nonsequels like “Doctor Strange”<br />and “Ant-Man”) despite concern by some at Disney about sales of “Black Panther” toys.<br />Disney, which supported “Black Panther” with a lavish nine-month marketing campaign, said on Sunday<br />that ticket sales for the film in North America will total roughly $218 million between Friday and Monday.<br />Analysts had expected “Black Panther” to arrive to about $165 million in North American ticket sales, which<br />would itself have been an astounding result for a release outside the holiday and summer corridors.<br />The Disney-Marvel movie “Black Panther,” which finds the superheroic T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) returning to his remote African kingdom to assume the throne, roared into theaters over the weekend as a full-blown cultural event, breaking box office records<br />and shattering a myth about the overseas viability of movies rooted in black culture.
