‘Black Panther’ has made broken records globally but it hasn’t broken political bans until now: the film will contribute to lifting a 35-year old ban of theatrical screenings in Saudi Arabia.
A push toward conservative values in the early 1980s saw a widespread closure of movie theatres across the country. Last December, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced that the ban would be lifted in order to progress the values of Saudi Arabia.
The lifting will be marked by a gala premiere of Marvel’s Chadwick Boseman-starring movie in an AMC-branded theatre in Riyadh. As Comic Book report, analysts are predicting that with 23 million citizens under the age of 30, Saudi Arabia could be a massive foreign market for the movie industry.
‘Black Panther’ has been recently notable for vastly different feat but one admirable all the same: it recently broke Twitter record, becoming the most tweeted about movie of all-time.
The record was previously held by Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but now the Marvel film has knocked it to second place after attracting more than 35 million tweets. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is now down to third.
The most used hashtags were #BlackPanther, #Wakanda and #WakandaForever
Read more: Black Panther sequel: everything we know so far
NME‘s Olly Richards called ‘Black Panther’ “the best Marvel movie yet”, adding: “This is a vitally important film and an absolute, watch-it-again-immediately blast.”
In less encouraging news, Tesco has said it is “extremely sorry” for “any offence caused” after erroneously labelling a ‘Black Panther’ costume as ‘Dark Panther’.