“Black Panther” came, saw and conquered, and it’s barely been in theaters four days. In that amount of time it has already outgrossed, domestically, what DC’s superhero team-up “Justice League” managed to conjure in three months. It has taken on a cultural significance unmeasurable to anyone who’s never wrangled with a lack of representation on the screen. Michelle Obama tweeted about the film Monday morning, expressing a hope that it will “inspire people of all backgrounds to dig deep and find the courage to be heroes of their own stories” (though it hasn’t yet made President Trump’s Twitter agenda).
Ryan Coogler’s blockbuster is, it seems uncontroversial to say, a phenomenon. The only question, on all fronts, is how far can it go?
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