Hollywood Faces the Growing Box Office Power of Black Audiences
- People of color buy half the movie tickets sold in the U.S.
- Films with black casts are exceeding box office forecasts
Tiffany Haddish, Regina Hall, Jada Pinkett Smith and Queen Latifah from the movie Girls Trip speak during the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans, Louisiana, on July 1, 2017.
Photographer: Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images for UniversalThis article is for subscribers only.
The biggest “surprise" of the weekend box office was also totally predictable: a film with a predominantly black cast drew a bigger audience than industry analysts expected.
Universal’s “Girls Trip,” a women-on-the-loose comedy starring Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, Tiffany Haddish and Jada Pinkett Smith, made $30.4 million in its opening weekend, about 50 percent more than the $20 million Comcast Corp.’s film division estimated and second only to “Dunkirk.” Critics liked it too, with 88 percent positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.