Instead of being excited about what could turn out to be not only another successful piece of the Marvel jigsaw, but an important cultural milestone in blockbuster filmmaking, the release of Black Panther has summoned forth a group of internet trolls from their post Star Wars: The Last Jedi slumber.
A Facebook group called Down With Disney’s Treatment of Franchises and its Fanboys were attempting to negatively influence the movie’s score on film aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. They’d started an event titled “Give Black Panther a Rotten Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes” in retaliation for a perceived anti-DC stance from the majority of critics. The event’s description was:
“Given the massive success of the audience review rigging on the Rotten Tomatoes site for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and due to the sudden rise in those disgruntled with Disney business practices among other factors especially due to the corporate manipulations which created falsified bad press for the DCEU, I feel that it’s time to strike back at all those under Disney and bring down the house of mouse’s actions for paying off the critics that hurt DC Comics on film and for other parties affected by them. I’ll be making events like this for Infinity War and the Netflix shows etc so we can rally together to truly make a difference. Share this with your friends and all potential sympathizers.”
Not only does it seem to be a completely pointless exercise given the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Black Panther‘s premiere, and the record-breaking pre-sales reported in the past week, but Facebook have now stepped in and shut down the group, which Variety reports was “was led by a professed member of the alt-right”.
What are your thoughts on Facebook’s intervention? Does either the audience or critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes really influence whether you’re going to see a huge event movie like Black Panther? Let us know in the comments below.
SEE ALSO: Black Panther producer discusses the film’s connections with the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe
After the events of Captain America: Civil War, King T’Challa returns home to the reclusive, technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda to serve as his country’s new leader. However, T’Challa soon finds that he is challenged for the throne from factions within his own country. When two foes conspire to destroy Wakanda, the hero known as Black Panther must team up with C.I.A. agent Everett K. Ross and members of the Dora Milaje, Wakandan special forces, to prevent Wakanda from being dragged into a world war.
Black Panther sees Ryan Coogler (Creed) directing Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa alongside Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia, Michael B. Jordan as Erik Killmonger, Danai Gurira as Okoye, Winston Duke as M’Baku, Forest Whitaker as Zuri, Daniel Kaluuya as W’Kabi, Angela Bassett as Ramonda, Florence Kasumba as Ayo, Martin Freeman as Everett Ross, Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaue, Letitia Wright as Shuri, Sterling K. Brown as N’Jobu, JoOhn Kani as King T’Chaka and Nabiyah Be as Nightshade. The film is set for release on February 12th in the UK and on February 16th in the States.
