Lupita Nyong’o says there was “fear” among Marvel executives surrounding the release of “Black Panther.”
The Oscar winner said during a BFI London Film Festival event (via The Hollywood Reporter) that Marvel leadership had a “lot of fear” over how the 2018 superhero film would land at the box office. “Black Panther” went on to be a blockbuster film and ignited a cultural movement. It won Academy Awards and spurred a sequel.
“There was a lot of fear, definitely from the executives,” Nyong’o said. “Marvel was shaking a little bit in their boots!”
She added, “We were too because we were like, we only get to do this once. And we gotta do it right.”
According to the “Wild Robot” star, “Black Panther” “totally shattered the myth that Black doesn’t sell.”
And sell it did: “Black Panther” grossed more than $1.3 billion at the global box office. (Its 2022 sequel “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” made about $860 million.)
So surely Marvel got over its “fear,” as Lyong’o put it, right? Not according to Marvel’s “The Acolyte” TV series star Jodie Turner-Smith.
Turner-Smith recently criticized Disney brass for staying mum as she says her and her co-star Amandla Stenberg were subjected to “hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol, prejudice, hatred, and hateful language.”
“They’ve got to stop doing this thing where they don’t say anything when people are getting fucking dog-piled on the internet with racism and bullshit,” Turner-Smith told Glamour UK. “It’s just not fair to not say anything. It’s really unfair.”
She continued, “It would just be nice if the people that have all the money were showing their support and putting their feet down. Say this is unacceptable: ‘You’re not a fan if you do this.’ Make a really big statement and just see if any money leaves. I bet you it won’t, because people of color, and especially Black people, make up a very large percentage of buying power. They might find that it’s actually more lucrative for them, but everyone’s using ‘woke’ like it’s a dirty word. We’re going to get there at some point, to that place where people stop having a stick up their [ass] about people of color being a part of IPs that were created by white people. You know why? Because we’re never going to fucking stop participating.”
