Daring, diverse 'Black Panther' promises to be Hollywood's latest 'cultural touchstone'

Brian Truitt | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Trailer: 'Black Panther' Chadwick Boseman stars as the ruler of Wakanda and its greatest hero in the Marvel superhero film 'Black Panther.'

The social-media hashtag says it all: #BlackPantherSoLit.

Not even a year after Wonder Woman arrived and became a female-fronted phenomenon, Black Panther — the big-screen solo debut for Marvel’s first black comic-book superhero — is poised to royally rock pop culture again, with Chadwick Boseman as the African king and masked warrior.

“It’s going to bring in a lot of people who don’t even really go to comic-book movies," says Jamie Broadnax, editor in chief and creator of the online community BlackGirlNerds.com. "They’re going to see themselves reflected in a huge way that they just haven’t been able to see before.”

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Boseman initially appeared as Black Panther in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, but the new movie (in theaters Feb. 16) builds upon his story and adds an expansive locale to the Marvel universe. Following his father's death, T’Challa (Boseman) becomes king of Wakanda, an African country that hides the fact it’s the most technologically advanced nation in the world, but the new ruler has to defend his throne from both internal and external threats.

Black Panther director Ryan Coogler isn’t on social media as much as his "buddy," filmmaker Ava DuVernay, but says she shows him the “infectious excitement” from online fans tagging their posts #BlackPantherSoLit. “When I’m feeling tired or down or I’m up against a creative wall, it gets me through seeing that folks are looking for it,” he says.

And they’re ready: This month, Black Panther had the best first-day presales of any Marvel movie on the ticket site Fandango.com, eclipsing the blockbuster Civil War. Churches and community groups in Harlem and Detroit are organizing private screenings and raising money for youngsters to see the movie. There's also the cool factor, with hip-hop star Kendrick Lamar curating and producing the Black Panther soundtrack, plus Panther merchandise ranging from action figures at Target to "Wakanda Forever" T-shirts at Hot Topic.

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“The black community is certainly bursting at the seams for this film to be released,” says Gil Robertson, co-founder and president of the African American Film Critics Association. For representation in Hollywood, Black Panther is a “critically important” project: “It’s a gate-opener opportunity for other black-centered projects.”

Black Panther is currently tracking for a box-office opening of $100 million to $120 million — “a pretty conservative number,” Broadnax says. “I think it’s going to make way more than that.”

Could it surpass Deadpool’s all-time February debut ($132.4 million) or even get close to the opening of an Avengers-style event film such as Civil War ($179.1 million)?

“I wouldn’t underestimate Black Panther in any way,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore. What it will definitely be is “a cultural touchstone event. The more important currency to this movie — as was with Wonder Woman — is not the dollars and cents, although that will be substantial, but the impact on the zeitgeist.”

Broadnax anticipates that Black Panther will change the response to diversity on the big screen. By showing superheroes of color, "we can see ourselves reflected and feel like we matter," she says. "We’re so used to seeing these comic-book heroes who are white dudes named Chris."

She also points out "phenomenal" female characters such as T'Challa's tech-savvy teenage sister Shuri (Letitia Wright), "who inspires girls and young people (by showing) that you can strive for whatever you want and not feel like you have to look a certain way or be in a certain class in order to be seen as intellectual."

While Robertson didn’t have a movie such as Black Panther growing up, “just imagine the impact it’s going to have on the lives of children from every background to have a major tent-pole film with a black lead," he says. "That in and of itself just speaks to how far we’ve come in terms of equal opportunity and representation in cinema. I couldn’t be more thrilled about that.”