Octavia Spencer Pledges to Buy Out Mississippi Showing of Black Panther for Underprivileged Kids
Photos by Michael Buckner/Getty, Alberto E. Rodriguez/GettyOscar winner Octavia Spencer will make a tremendous effort to support Black Panther’s Feb. 16 release while making sure that “all our brown children can see themselves as a superhero.”
As EW points out, in an Instagram post on Wednesday, Spencer made a pledge to buy out a Mississippi movie theater for underprivileged African-American youth to “see themselves as a superhero.”
Spencer’s gesture seems to be a part of a bigger effort to show Hollywood that a big-budget film with a predominately black cast can make as much money as their white counterparts. Many black power players—both inside and outside of entertainment—are making it their mission for black children to see this monumental film, a landmark of black culture in the making. Meanwhile, Black Panther pre-sales are breaking records left and right.
This isn’t the first time Spencer has made this kind of gesture. For 2017’s Hidden Figures, she bought out screenings across the country in low-income neighborhoods so that audiences could see the inspiring film, resulting in her co-stars doing the same.
Hopefully, Spencer’s and others’ gestures will make event films like this more of an occurrence and less of an anomaly.