Black Panther has become the most tweeted about movie ever.
Twitter revealed news that the Marvel hit has been mentioned more than 35m times, pushing previous record holder Star Wars: The Force Awakens to second place, with Star Wars: The Last Jedi in third.
Tweets were led with the most used hashtags #BlackPanther, #Wakanda and #WakandaForever, while the most mentioned characters have been Black Panther himself along with villain Killmonger and Shuri.
The most shared posts have come from Kendrick Lamar, whose soundtrack reveal was retweeted over 240,000 times, and Michelle Obama, whose endorsement of the film scored over 139,000 retweets.
“Congrats to the entire #blackpanther team!” she tweeted. “Because of you, young people will finally see superheroes that look like them on the big screen. I loved this movie and I know it will inspire people of all backgrounds to dig deep and find the courage to be heroes of their own stories.”
The film has turned into a box office phenomenon, making $1.1bn worldwide since its release in February. It’s already the seventh biggest film of all time in the US and has been at number one for five weekends in a row. It’s also the best reviewed live-action superhero film on Rotten Tomatoes and the biggest ever hit from a black director.
Kevin Feige, the head of Marvel Studios, has also confirmed that a sequel is on the way. “Nothing specific to reveal, other than to say we absolutely will do that,” he said to Entertainment Weekly. “One of the favorite pastimes at Marvel Studios is sitting around on a part one and talking and dreaming about what we would do in a part two. There have been plenty of those conversations as we were putting together the first Black Panther. We have ideas and a pretty solid direction on where we want to head with the second one.”
The character of Black Panther will next be seen in Avengers: Infinity War, which is to be released in April.