Black Panther Case Study

Black Panther

            Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures ,the American superhero film is based on the Marvel Comics. Marvel Studios itself is dedicated to producing films based on Marvel Comics characters, the studio has been involved in three Marvel- character film franchises to have exceeded $1 billion in North America revenue. However since 2012, Marvel Studios’ films are distributed theatrically by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, having previously been distributed by Paramount Pictures from 2008 to 2011. Marvel Studios has released 18 films since 2008 from Iron Man to Black Panther. All of these films share the continuity with each other, along with the One-Shots produced by the studio.

            The main actors in the film are Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan and Lupita Nyong’o. Unlike other Marvel superhero stars, Chadwick Boseman did not require an official audition for the prestigious role. When asked by The Project on Wednesday, the 41-year-old claimed he earnt the right to play the character without an audition. In fact, Chadwick got his offer while speaking to Marvel reps via speakerphone during a promo trip for Get On Up in Zurich in 2014. Chadwick getting paid more than a million, the film he starred in continues to make money.

            The film has an estimated production budget of around $200,000,000. Since this is a Marvel-produced film it will have a lot of special effects that would cost a lot of money. The company’s creative process largely starts in its visual-development department. That’s where artists like team head Ryan Meinerding start determining what the cinematic versions of the studio’s characters will actually look like. They go back to the comics inspiring a given storyline, and start sketching. The actors will not be getting a large payment ,since they are not that famous and haven’t made a name for themselves compared to other actors. Overall, tons of money will go into effects, mainly visual, since we all know how the whole environment of a Marvel film is Marvel-ized. While it is still considered developmental artwork, the imagery itself was impeccably detailed, nearly photo-real.

            The film itself is not only marketed through  TV or Social Media. The film will be released during Black History Month, and the protagonist T’Challa shares a name with the Black Panther party of the 70s- although he was named before the group was formed. This move garnered broad media coverage and a series of copycat fundraisers cropped to do the same for kids across the country. Similarly reaching children was toy-selling ad campaign Hasbro, selling vibranium claws and a mask. “We are going after a younger customer, and just from a demographic standpoint, the younger you go, the more culturally diverse the population gets,” Cooper Ericksen ,Lexus’s vice president of marketing, said at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. “The task is to hit our sales plan really comes from bringing a lot of new customers into the brand.” In a nutshell, Marvel is using activism and “charity” to drive up the film ticket sales. Numerous licensed products are being sold as well. Clothing merchandise, toys ,such as lego toys and action figures, and even jewellery.

            Lexus and Marvel Studios have teamed up to create, not only Black Panther-inspired vehicles, but a new graphic novel titled, “Black Panther: Soul of a Machine”. The two vehicle created were exclusively designed around Marvel Studios’ Black Panther film- the 2018 LC Inspiration Series production car and a concept coupe called the Black Panther Inspired LC. The limited edition 2018 Lexus LC Series features an iridescent Structural Blue colour. This will the first in a succession of Inspiration series vehicles Lexus plans to create for each of its flagship models. Of course, you cannot work with Marvel Comics and not produce  comic book that centers around Black Panther and the use of a Lexus vehicle. The graphic novel has T’Challa aka Black Panther and his sister Shuri up against Machinesmith, who infiltrates all of Wakanda’s systems. Black Panther and his team must create the ultimate machine to stop him. What machine? The Lexus LC. “The comics are reflecting the world that is going to appear in the movie because it’s beneficial to everyone to do that but not because it’s a requirement to do that,” the writer Nicieza said. “I did everything I did with zero awareness of what the movie is going to be doing. I was basing the majority of what I was doing on a synthesis of the 45 years of a Black Panther I’ve been reading, as a reader, combined with the recent material that’s been done, which really fleshed out the world of Wakanda quite a bit.”

            The film can be really successful due to the large conglomerate and especially Disney. Since Disney purchased Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion in 2009, Marvel would create film projects with their own studio and Disney would distribute them. Some side-collaborations occur once in a while as well. For instance, in 2015 it was announced that Disney and Sony Pictures will collaborate on the next Spider-Man films, the first of which, Spider-Man: Homecoming, was released on July 7, 2017. Former Sony executive Amy Pascal will co-produce the films with Kevin Feige. The film rights to Spider-Man will still remain with Sony. Marvel Studios will also explore opportunities to integrate other characters MCU into future Spider-Man films. Essentially, I think that such partnership is beneficial to all, since the film can be distributed easily  and advertised better.

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