MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The sequel to the blockbuster Marvel hit “Black Panther,” which garnered $1.3 billion at the box office in 2018, finally reached theaters Friday.
"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" is seeing hundreds of thousands of people around the country to see the long-awaited film. The scene is no different here in the Bluff City.
Filmgoers said that the movie was not only a continuation of the historic cultural phenomenon that was the 2018 film, but it also was a moving tribute to the late great Chadwick Boseman.
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“It is a must-see, from the very beginning, I was amazed," one attendee told ABC24. I started crying before the movie even began."
According to Forbes, the film has already earned about $66 million in advance ticket sales.
Some projections have "Wakanda Forever"'s debut earnings totaling nearly $200 million this weekend. That would make the film the biggest domestic opening so far this year.
It’s a movie not only for the crowd but the culture.
“Blacks as a culture, we are the only culture that really don’t know from whence we come," another attendee said. "So in this movie, I think it’s really going to help the millennial generation to reach down and dig."
Comic-book-enthusiast and co-owner of "901 Comics" Shannon Merritt says Black Panther gave Marvel much-needed diversity; expanding his customer base and uniting otherwise segregated cultures.
“A whole slew of people that were unrepresented in comics at the time, Meritt said. "So he [Black Panther] became more a part of my whole reading process. [Black Panther] diversified our clientele as a comic bookstore. I’m assuming it’s probably done so — brought more people from the African American culture into the comic-book-movie-culture.”