Black Twitter came for Forbes film critic Scott Mendelson for making the bold claim that Black Panther's success is ruining it for other movies.
As Black Panther continues to break records and snatch wigs along the way, writers are attempting to conceptualize the importance of the latest Marvel film's success after it hit the billion-dollar mark at the box office.
Mendelson is no different.
In his recent opinion piece, the longtime film critic said that the Ryan Coogler-directed film is "terrifying" because it has seemingly "steamrolled" the competition "at the expense of other would-be event movies."
"Black Panther is so big, so good and so 'one size fits all' in its appeal that it has turned an entire slate of would-be blockbusters into counterprogramming," he wrote. "We had a record-setting March last year when Logan (an $88 million debut weekend), Skull Island ($61m), Beauty and the Beast ($174m), Power Rangers ($40m) and The Boss Baby ($49m) mostly thrived alongside each other. The biggies of March 2018 (Red Sparrow, Wrinkle in Time, Tomb Raider, Pacific Rim: Uprising, and Ready Player One) are getting hurt by the mid-February smash that won’t die."
Twitter users were perplexed by the language Mendelson used to describe the film's monumental success. Some pointed out that the clickbait headline was just that, clickbait. However, others stated that Mendelson's take was tone-deaf.
It's start to shatter long racist myths in Hollywood showing that our stories can be told on a global blockbuster scale, so you turn around and say it's a nightmare for Hollywood box office. this is trash.
— Benjamin Dobbs (@Frank6Bf) March 20, 2018
But this is not the first time he has made such claims—2016's Deadpool is an example.
Not to me… đhttps://t.co/N1ZAzYyF1h
— Scott Mendelson (@ScottMendelson) March 20, 2018
I’d feel a lot more kindly to this article if it ever bothered to allude to any potential benefits of an black movie being this big of a success.
As it is, it becomes uncomfortably framed as ‘the black one is *stealing* all the money that ‘rightfully’ belonged to other films’— Queerly, Dubious (@DubiousCA) March 20, 2018
Phil LaMarr, actor and voice behind of many animated characters, chimed in that other major hit films like James Cameron's Avatar were not called a "nightmare" for defeating the competition.
The way you’re getting flamed, my tweet is almost a defense. You have to admit, that original headline & failure to address why BP is a “nightmare” if Avatar wasn’t, is pretty tone deaf.
— Phil LaMarr (@phillamarr) March 21, 2018
I'm trying to recall when the press said movies like Star Wars, Avatar and Harry Potter were considered Hollywood's worst nightmare for being so popular. But a Black film brings in $1 billion and it's a nightmare.
— Jenee Darden (@CocoaFly) March 20, 2018
Users refuted Mendelson's claims by stating bluntly that other tentpole films fail because of their poor quality and not because of one particular film steamrolling them.
Wow, that headline is incredibly offensive. And the article it isn't much better. The problem isn't that Black Panther is "stealing" box office from other tentpoles. The problem is those other films weren't good. Jedi, Showman and Jumanji all succeeded because they were all good.
— Lisa Bee (@leebee4life) March 20, 2018
