Resounding success of 'Black Panther' franchise says little about the dubious state of Black film

Wesley Snipes attends the premiere of ‘Blade 2’ in March 2002. Vince Bucci/Getty Images^[11]

Otherwise, Black superhero films such as “Catwoman^[12]” (2004) and “Sleight^[13]” (2016) either flopped or had a limited release.

Furthermore, until “Black Panther,” no Black film exceeded a $100 million budget, the average benchmark^[14] for modern Hollywood blockbusters.

Nonetheless, despite these early concerns, “Black Panther” earned the highest domestic gross, $700 million^[15], of all films released in 2018, while earning $1.3 billion in worldwide gross, second only to “Avengers: Infinity War^[16].”

“Black Panther” emerged at the tail end of what many industry experts considered to be a surprisingly successful^[17] run of Black films, which included the biopic “Hidden Figures^[18]” (2016) and the raunchy comedy “Girls Trip^[19]” (2017). Despite their modest budgets, they earned over $100 million apiece at the box office – $235 million^[20] and $140 million^[21], respectively.

However, both films were mostly reliant on the domestic box office, especially the R-rated “Girls Trip,” which was only released in a handful of foreign markets. Conventional wisdom^[22] has long held that Black films will fail abroad. International distributors and studios typically ignore them during the presale process or at film festivals and markets, reasoning^[23] that Black films are too culturally specific – not only in terms of their Blackness, but also their Americanness.

Films like “Black Panther” and the Oscar winning “Moonlight^[24]” (2016), which earned more on the international market^[25] than the domestic market, certainly challenged those assumptions. It has yet to upend them.

Black films after ‘Black Panther’

What do those Black films released in theaters in the nearly five years between “Black Panther” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” tell us about the former’s impact?

The simple answer is that the original “Black Panther” has had no discernible influence on industry practices whatsoever.

Since 2018, no other Black blockbuster has emerged, save for the sequel itself. Granted, Black filmmaker Ava DuVernay’s remake of “A Wrinkle in Time^[26]” (2018) reportedly cost an estimated $100 million; however, while Black actors portrayed the protagonist and a few other characters, the film features a multicultural ensemble cast – which, as scholars such as Mary Beltran^[27] have pointed out, has become the primary strategy for achieving diversity in film.

Even if one were to include “A Wrinkle in Time,” the grand total of Black films with budgets exceeding $100 million is three, with the two “Black Panther” films being the others – all during an era in which there have been hundreds^[28] of mainstream films with budgets exceeding $100 million.

Otherwise, most of the Black films released in theaters between 2018 and 2022 typically were low budget by Hollywood standards – $3 million to $20 million in most cases – with only a handful, such as the 2021 Aretha Franklin biopic “Respect^[29],” costing $50 million to 60 million.

Perhaps the most notable change has been the medium. Many Black films now appear on either cable networks that cater to a Black audience – namely Black Entertainment Television and, more recently, Lifetime – or on streaming services such as Netflix. Tyler Perry, the most popular and prolific Black filmmaker of the modern era, has released his latest films – “A Jazzman’s Blues^[30]” (2022), “A Madea Homecoming^[31]” (2022) and “A Fall from Grace^[32]” (2020) – directly to Netflix.

Furthermore, no other Black film has approached the financial success of “Black Panther.” Granted, several Black films have fared well at the box office, especially relative to their production costs. Foremost among them is Jordan Peele’s “Us” (2019), which cost an estimated $20 million, yet earned approximately $256 million worldwide despite its R rating and the fact that it was never released in China.

Whither Black film

Without question, large budgets and commercial success are not the only measures of a film’s value and significance.

As has historically been the case, Black film has managed to do more with less. The critical acclaim afforded to films such as “BlackKlansman^[33]” (2018), “If Beale Street Could Talk^[34]” (2019) and “King Richard^[35]” (2021) reflect this fact. All reflect trends in contemporary Black filmmaking – comedies, historical dramas and biopics abound, for instance – and were made for a fraction of the cost of both “Black Panther” films.

In truth, the zeal with which some cast “Black Panther” as a bellwether for Black films is part of continued haranguing over their viability, particularly after the #OscarsSoWhite^[36] movement that drew attention to the lack of diversity at the 2016 Academy Awards.

However, its positioning as a Disney property within Marvel’s transmedia storytelling effort makes it so atypical that its success — and that of its sequel — portends little about Black film.

Authors: Phillip Lamarr Cunningham, Assistant Professor, Media Studies, Wake Forest University

Read more https://theconversation.com/resounding-success-of-black-panther-franchise-says-little-about-the-dubious-state-of-black-film-194506

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