The Black Panther Wakanda forever is one of the most anticipated films of 2022
It’s expected to make a lot at the box office and there is a lot riding on this film for the future of the Marvel brand, but also the entire Black Panther brand that they will be expanding with TV shows and more film. But every week we keep talking about something that’s slowly being dubbed the Black Panther curse, where something keeps going wrong. The latest is the fact that France.
Looks to be set to cancel all theatrical runs of the upcoming film. The original Black Panther made one point three five billion dollars. At the box office. Most people expected that it would barely make 600 million, so again, it went above and beyond way over what was expected. When it came to specific countries like France, for example, the film made 33 million, which was way over what they expected. So again, it’s a pretty big location. And 33 million is a pretty decent chunk of change that contributes to that 1 3-5 billion. But now things are not looking so good for wakonda forever.
Essentially it comes down to the laws in France. So the big deal here is a country like France has a rule where you have to wait 17 months to release a film on a streaming subscription based service after theatrical release.
So currently. If you live in France and you want to watch MCU phase four films, you can’t. Because of these laws. They take time again. Each country has their own independent laws, what’s allowed, what’s not. This is just how it goes. So what we’re seeing now is Disney finds themselves in an interesting spot.
Do they pull Black Panther in France and then they can toss it onto Disney plus and then make a bunch of money, which is what analysts believe they’re going to end up doing because in the long run, Disney plus is a better investment for the long term to drive subscribers internationally. And boost their numbers instead of committing to making 30 to 40 to 50 million or whatever. And this all ties back to Captain Marvel as well. If you guys remember Disney films, Marvel films were being sold to Netflix for about fifty million dollars per streaming. Disney said we’re not selling Captain Marvel. We’re going to eat the cost because we believe people will come to the service to watch a film like that and everything else.
People laughed at them. They proved everybody wrong. I literally hitting their five year subscription goal for Disney plus in one year. So there’s something to be said here in regards to their strategy. So it looks like the law could do agitatedly prevent the film from screening in France and there’s possibly a couple other countries that it’s going to get pulled from or outright cancelled because of such laws or other things.
Now what this means ultimately for Disney is. Well, less on the box office take, but more on Disney plus. And if that’s the case, well. They can eat the cost, especially if they believe that Wakanda forever will make more money in other territories. So that’s why we could be seeing them just pull the film outright and then just say fine, it’s coming to Disney. Plus, who cares? We didn’t show it in France because there’s a good substitute in regards to other countries making more money.
