‘Black Panther’ Roars through the Weekend Despite Threats of Sabotage

Prior to the release of Black Panther last weekend, there came a little strife. An alt-right Facebook group called “Down with Disney’s Treatment of Franchises and its Fanboys” attempted to sabotage its release. The group recently created a Facebook event called “Give Black Panther a Rotten Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes,” but the event was taken down by Facebook as well as the Facebook group.

The moderator of the Facebook group also claimed to be behind the low audience score for “Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ which was released back in December.

According to the Huffington Post and other news outlets, the moderator self identified as a member of the alt-right. The alt-right is a group of individuals who believe in a loose set of far-right ideals centered on “white identity” and the preservation of “western civilization.” 

Before the Facebook event was taken down, thousands of people said they were going or interested in the event. Rotten Tomatoes  stated that they will stunt any hate speech in the comments.

“We at Rotten Tomatoes are proud to have become a platform for passionate fans to debate and discuss entertainment and we take that responsibility seriously,” the review aggregator said in a statement. “While we respect our fans’ diverse opinions, we do not condone hate speech. Our team of security, network and social experts continue to closely monitor our platforms and any users who engage in such activities will be blocked from our site and their comments removed as quickly as possible.”

Black Panther, which opened February 16th, has quickly proven to be one of Marvel’s biggest films yet. The opening weekend pulled in a record-breaking $242 million in North America and $426.6 million worldwide. People were lining up in superhero costumes and traditional African attire to honor the fact that this is the first big Hollywood action film with a majority black cast.