The cast of “Black Panther” has addressed the alt-right banned Facebook group that was seeking to rig the film’s audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, and based on the responses, the cast isn’t sweating about the haters.
“Everybody is just focused forward. Those people are at the back,” said Letitia Wright of the group.
“I definitely thought about it, and I think you don’t really know how big of an impact that’s going to be,” added “Black Panther” headliner Chadwick Boseman. So whatever they do online doesn’t really matter.”
The group, dubbed “Down With Disney’s Treatment of Franchises and its Fanboys,” had set up an event — “Give Black Panther a Rotten Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes” — with nearly 4,000 members ready to trash “Black Panther” sight unseen.
Facebook acted swiftly and yanked the page of the Anti-Disney, Anti-Marvel, alt-right-leaning group. The social network removed the page for violating its “community standards” on Friday. The group’s page is currently unavailable if you search it.
A spokesperson for Rotten Tomatoes told TheWrap: “We at Rotten Tomatoes are proud to have become a platform for passionate fans to debate and discuss entertainment and we take that responsibility seriously. While we respect our fans’ diverse opinions, we do not condone hate speech. 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.”
The Ryan Coogler film, reuniting the director with “Creed” star Michael B. Jordan, is set to hit theaters on Feb. 16.