Based on the box office projections, a lot of people are going to go see Black Panther this weekend, but if you're one of them, you may want to check out the people in the theater with you, because one of them might look familiar. Chadwick Boseman says that he wants to share the movie with the fans in attendance opening weekend, so he'll be sneaking into the film to just sit with everybody else and take it all in. According to Boseman...
We want to surprise some people and show up. You know, sneak in and listen to some people while they watch the movie. Just get a sense of what it is. So, you won't know I'm there. You know, you won't know I'm there unless we come out and surprise you. That's gonna be fun, to just share the movie.
Make no mistake, for a lot of people Black Panther is more than just a movie, it's an event. Groups have started GoFundMe pages to raise money in order to get as many kids as possible into the new Marvel film. A lot of those kids will be in attendance over this opening weekend and Chadwick Boseman apparently would like to watch their reactions as they watch the MCU's first black superhero on the big screen. He uses "we" when telling the Associated Press about his plan, so it's possible other members of the Black Panther cast will be doing the same thing, showing up at theaters to watch the movie with the rest of the crowd.
The most recent estimates have Black Panther setting a February record for opening weekend box office with numbers around $170 million. Even if it comes up short of that number the opening is still going to be huge. There's also the possibility that number is soft. The estimates have only increased over the last couple of months so there's every chance it will do even better than currently expected. Black Panther will certainly bring in the majority of the crowd that goes to see every Marvel movie, but it's also going to attract many who don't normally rush out for the genre, and even some who don't often go to movies at all.
It seems that Black Panther is set to be for the African-American community what Wonder Woman was for women, a major opportunity to see themselves represented on screen in a movie that's just as big as the rest of the superhero films that have been opening for the last several years. The movie doesn't simply have Chadwick Boseman in the lead, but it has an entire cast of stellar black actors from all over the world. It's going to be a very interesting weekend at the movies, even more so if you find yourself there with the star of the movie you're watching.
