The wait for eager fans like me is over. Black Panther: Forever After Wakanda opened in theaters worldwide and broke box office records. In Brazil, the Marvel franchise the current film is a sequel to Black Panther has transformed black people’s relationship with cinema, sparking special gatherings in various cities across the country.
When it was released in cinemas in 2018, “Black Panther” shook world cinema. The film was even nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture for telling the saga of the black superhero who would save the fictional African nation of Wakanda. The richest, most stable, and most technologically advanced territory on the planet soon conquered the black Brazilian public, which hungered for the representativeness denied to us through a process of destroying our identities.
It was the perfect storyline to make Brazil one of the highest grossing countries for the film. The premiere of the sequel was no different. For the first weekend, he was responsible for cleaning up the dust that had settled on the seats in cinemas across the country since the postpandemic era. Raised more than R$29 million in four days. During the same period, Black Adam, a film starring The Rock, grossed R$3.8 million and fell to second place in the weekly ranking.
The feature undoubtedly marks a turning point in the way black stories are told. It’s the first superhero film with a majority Black protagonist, director and production team, and it challenged stereotypes about Africa which was already a mature discussion for us, but we knew that wasn’t the case with the general public. .
In 2018, attorney Mayara Silva and I helped organize viewing groups to see Black Panther. On that occasion, I was very impressed with the film and how people left the cinema totally moved and happy to have seen all that power on screen. I particularly remember one boy who walked into the room and said his favorite superhero was Superman, but left and told me that he had changed because Black Panther had the same skin and hair as him.
More than skin color or curly hair, we’re talking about a film that sets out to destroy all colonialist logic. Starting with Wakanda, which represents a territory that never received the visit of the planet’s greatest destroyers, the European colonizers. Women also hold an important place in the saga as well as in African culture. They are represented pluralistically, according to studies of the structure of many African nations, in a matriarchal leadership as they really were.
Since that moment in 2018, the Brazilian black community has had a closer relationship with cinema and art. People began to understand the importance of supporting black productions and groups to see films starring black actors across the country. This is the case of the Intelectualidade Afrobrasileira organized by the couple Ana Paula Evangelista and Durval Arantes. From a film session to a black dinner, the couple moved the scene with meetings in São Paulo’s black community.
Meetings are already taking place across the country to see the second version of Black Panther. From São Paulo to Salvador, people are mobilizing black people to fill the cinemas and see the film’s sequence. Director Ryan Coogler and screenwriter Joe Robert Cole faced a difficult challenge when they had to rewrite the story without Chadwick Boseman, star of the first feature film, who died in 2020 after a battle with cancer. In order not to spoil you, I’ll just say that you managed to complete the task: the film is very emotional. Wakanda forever!