A lot will be written this morning about Ava Duvernay’s “A Wrinkle in Time” finishing second at the box office to Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther” in its opening weekend. “Panther” made $41 mil to “Wrinkle”‘s $33 million.
But there are two firsts here that are more important. The first first: the top 2 movies of the week are made by black directors.
The second first: One of them (Duvernay) is a woman.
The third first: Coogler is the second black director to score a billion dollar movie worldwide. The first was F. Gary Gray with “The Fate of the Furious” last year, total $1.2 billion.
Coogler, 31, is now on a trajectory for a long, confident, and successful career following the award winning and much praised “Fruitvale Station” and the studio powered hit “Creed.”
Duvernay has already become a symbolic leader for women in general, female directors, you name it. She was really screwed on “Selma,” a movie that needs to be seen over and over. But she’s made her name with “Wrinkle.”
Keep refreshing for hard numbers…
