The Hollywood Palms Cinema of Illinois has issued a hilarious apology to trolls who weren’t happy with the theater’sBlack Pantherpromotion. As Marvel fans know, the majority ofBlack Panthertakes place in the fictional African nation ofWakanda. As far as comic book movies go, it’s not remotely hard to believe that such a place exists. However, many online trolls, for whatever reason, took issue with the Illinois theater for using the “Welcome to Wakanda” tagline while promoting the movie on social media. From their point of view, they didn’t seem to like that these posts may have indicated the theater chain didn’t understand that Wakanda is not a real place.
Hollywood Palms very clearly understood that Wakanda is a fictional place that onlyexists in the world of Marvel, but they still decided to do the classy thing and issue an apology for those who took issue with theirBlack Pantherpromotion. The apology is absolutely hilarious and serves as a pretty amazing bit of one-upmanship, as they not only display how ridiculous it is to assume they didn’t know Wakanda was not a real place, but by also demonstrating their knowledge of other fictional lands within the MCU. Here’s their full apology.
“Earlier we received some negative feedback to posts highlighting the fantastic world of Black Panther, saying ‘Welcome to Wakanda,’ These complaints stressed to us that Wakanda is not real. Hollywood Palms apologizes for the error. We did not wish to give the false impression that Wakanda, a country with bulletproof suits that fit in small containers, flying cars, andgender equalitywas a real place. We would also like to take this opportunity to apologize to any Sokovian refugees, citizens ofKamar-Taj, or visitors from far-off Asgard who may have been offended.”
Well played.Sokovia, Kamar-Taj and Asgard are all important locations within the MCU, but fictional places that don’t exist in the real world and their inclusion in this apology is pretty much a checkmate for those trolls. There’s also some pretty heavy and topical political stuff in here, with the comment about gender equality. The Hollywood Palms Cinema wasn’t afraid to fire back with this amazing apology and their social media team appears to be quite savvy.
A few trolls won’t be able to spoilBlack Panther’s parade. The movie dramatically over-performed at the box office, as it’s set to bring in $235 million over the four-day holiday weekend. That makes it one of the biggest domestic debuts ever for any movie. Couple that with the praise being heaped on this movie from critics and fans alike, not to mention the cultural significance thatBlack Pantherbrings with it, and that makes this a resounding success for Marvel in every way. Fictional or not, Wakanda is a very real part of the pop culture conversation right now. Wakanda forever. You can check out the full post from theHollywood Palms Cinema Twitteraccount for yourself below.
