Black Panther Director Weighs In On Malicious Rotten Tomatoes Campaign

It’s been a pretty fascinating week for Marvel’s Black Panther.

In light of Monday’s world premiere, which drew an overwhelmingly positive reaction from critics, industry analysts have readjusted their projections from $100m-$120m to a much more impressive $150 million, indicating that Ryan Coogler’s spinoff – the final MCU movie to release before Avengers: Infinity War – may well surpass Deadpool to claim the box office crown.

The excitement for Black Panther is electric, then, but beneath all the buzz is a malicious, downright asinine campaign designed to undercut – even sabotage – the film’s Rotten Tomatoes review score. The movie aggregator has since vowed to ban any user found guilty of intentionally meddling with the audience metric, though it remains to be seen if RT’s measures are enough to stymie any hate speech – just look at how Star Wars: The Last Jedi fell victim to a snide Internet group.

But when it comes to Black Panther, one can’t help but wonder: what does director Ryan Coogler make of this online furore? Thankfully, the Huffington Post was on-hand to ask that very question, to which Coogler responded:

For me, I’m looking forward to everybody seeing the film. I’m really looking forward to sharing the film with audiences regardless of what their political views are…that’s kind of where I [stand on that].

It can be an oversimplification of what critics are saying about a movie. It’s quicker to look at the consensus than it is to read the articles. But I’m a person who definitely respects film criticism and draws on it in the filmmaking process.

Again, though, we’ll have to wait until February 16th before forming a clearer picture of Black Panther‘s consensus and the effect of a group that’s parading around as “Down with Disney’s Treatment of Franchises and its Fanboys.” Or lack thereof.