With a smash hit and cultural touchstone like Black panther: Wakanda Forever, some viewing records are going to be broken. The film made an estimated $842 million so far, and while that’s huge, it also broke another record despite punishing reviews from fans: viewing numbers on Disney Plus, where it’s now streaming.
In fact, it’s the most-viewed Marvel movie premiere on the service ever, based on initial streaming numbers for its first five days. This is especially impressive because the movie is still being shown in theaters, and it’s not just America either – these are global streaming numbers, according to a Disney Plus release.
While Disney didn’t release exact numbers (something Netflix does), this is good news considering the movie was trashed when it came out five days ago. Some of the complaints included accusations of low narrative stakes and poor CGI.
The news pretty much illustrates how a small but vocal contingent of haters can change the perception of how a movie is going to be received. The discontent was loud but ultimately people decided for themselves, by watching the actual movie instead of simply trashing it because they don’t like Shuri or whatever.
The movie, which came out on Nov. 11, is still gaining steam and was recently nominated for five Academy Awards: Angela Bassett (Queen Ramonda) was nominated for Best Supporting Actress; Ruth E. Carter for Best Costume Design and Geoffrey Baumann, Craig Hammack, Christopher White, and Dan Sudick for Best Visual Effects.
The song “Lift Me Up” was also nominated for Best Original Song and Camille Friend and Joel Harlow got nominated for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. You can see what all the fuss is about on Disney Plus, where the movie is currently streaming.