Ryan Coogler is unfazed by a fringe group’s recent threats to try sabotage the critical response to his epic Black Panther film.
News broke this week of a Facebook group that had plans to intentionally sabotage Black Panther’s Rotten Tomatoes score. Using the hashtags #DCOverMarvel and #BringDownDisney, the Facebook event was hosted by “Down with Disney’s Treatment of Franchises and its Fanboys.”
The purpose, according to the page, was to “Give Black Panther a Rotten Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes.” This same group claims to have tanked the score of The Last Jedi on Rotten Tomatoes as well.
Black Panther has already been receiving rave views and is on track to break box office records when it opens Valentine’s Day weekend.
“For me, I’m looking forward to everybody seeing the film,” Coogler told the Huffington Post. “I’m really looking forward to sharing the film with audiences regardless of what their political views are … that’s kind of where I [stand on that].”
“It … can be an oversimplification of what critics are saying about a movie. It’s quicker to look at the consensus than it is to read the articles,” he said when asked about Rotten Tomatoes scoring. “But I’m a person who definitely respects film criticism and draws on it in the filmmaking process.”
Rotten Tomatoes told CNN that they take the responsibility of their platform seriously: “While we respect our fans’ diverse opinions, we do not condone hate speech,” the statement said. “Our team of security, network and social experts continue to closely monitor our platforms and any users who engage in such activities will be blocked from our site and their comments removed as quickly as possible.”
As of Friday, Facebook appears to have removed the group. Marvel Studio News posted a screenshot of a notification saying the group has been removed and that it violated the Facebook’s community standards.