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Disney donates proceeds from Black Panther
For those of you that haven’t caught the Black Panther fever yet…shame on you. Just kidding, it’s an amazing movie that brought in some amazing results in just a few short days of it being released. Over the weekend of it’s premiere, it managed to bring in $201.8M all across the U.S. According to CNN it’s the fifth biggest opening of all time. It beats the record for biggest movie for an African-American director, beating F. Gary Gray and “The Fate of The Furious” which brought in $98M last April.
Black Panther holds the title for the second biggest premiere for Marvel Studios, coming behind The Avengers in 2012. It beat the records of other Marvel movies such as Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Iron Man 3, and Deadpool. It’s also the 18th Marvel Studios movie to be #1. Black Panther also crossed the $700M threshold globally…check this out – IN 2 WEEKS!! It’s expected to do the same for the $400M mark on Sunday, and it hasn’t even reached China or Japan.
Those are some highly impressive results. I mean come on, with everything that this movie is, how many people really thought this was going to do so well? There are often times way too much hype behind super hero movies, and sometimes they fall short of said hype. To the contrary, Black Panther has lived up to that hype and I would dare say, it surpassed it. Several people I know have even gone to see the movie twice because it was that good, and you know what? I’ll be joining them in that boat pretty soon!
With that said, let’s get to the real story here. This is something that I’m happy to hear, but also at the same time a bit concerned about. It’s been reported that Disney has listened to Jiminy Cricket and decided to donate $1M to the Boys And Girls Clubs of America, to show it’s celebration of the film’s success. This will also help this very organization’s youth STEM programs.
Disney CEO Bob Iger said this:
It was thrilling to see how inspired young audiences were by the spectacular technology in the film. It’s fitting that we show our appreciation by helping advance STEM programs for youth, especially in under-served areas of the country, to give them the knowledge and tools to build the future they want.
I’m happy because the money would help this organization greatly, and it’s equally needed. I feel like these kids are often forgotten and left to their own devices to help them get through life as opposed to other communities. I’m concerned because this doesn’t happen often, and because of the huge success of 1 movie that actually relates to black kids and people of color that reside in these communities, now something is being done. That shouldn’t be the case, and I am by no means trying to piss on anyone’s parade here. All I’m saying is I’d like to see Hollywood, and even some other companies for that matter DO MORE FOR THE PEOPLE THAT SUPPORT THEM. To their credit, Disney has donated to the Boys and Girls Club of America before last December, and stated their parks division would donate $1.1M to the organization in Central Florida.
What do you guys think of this? Should companies do more for their customers and the people they benefit from? Am I dreaming here by expecting too much of them? Comment below and let me know what you think!
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Yes, more companies should give back to the community. I’m not surprised Disney has made this decision. They are by no means newbies to the philanthropy game. They…as have numerous successful businesses realized that charitable contributions and services to the community proves to be a key strategy for boosting their bottom line. Not only does it make the community a better place to live, but it also serves as branding or marketing strategy. Giving back improves a company’s image in the eyes of community members and results in a better place to live and work for the company, its employees and the people who live there already. Therefore, the company becomes a “household” name. That’s a huge part of the premise behind branding…being first in the mind of the consumer. That’s just one of the many ways businesses can benefit from philanthropy though. The cool thing is that, yes while they are doing it to truly help their business, I like to believe that there are good people in the world in important positions of these companies who also really care about helping others. Am I just naive? Maybe…but imagine what the world would be like if a guy named Walt never cared about making others happy.
I agree with you wholeheartedly on this one, and I can see how that strategy can be very effective. Thanks for your input!
I 100% agree with you the amount of profit this movie got I’m glad Disney decided to give back and one would only hope other companies follow suit. This parts only my opinion but since the movie was based on Africa I feel like a donation to help Africa to get clean water would have also been fitting. Awesome read btw.
That is an awesome point! Hopefully they’ll do something like that in the future