FRANCHISED - What's Next After Black Panther?

I was proven right this past weekend. Black Panther turned out to be a massive hit, shattering records left and right in its first weekend of release, with no signs of stopping. This proves that big budget genre fair that caters to a black audience can and will be successful. That’s not empty theorizing; all you have to do is look at the box office receipts for films like Get Out and any Tyler Perry production to see that I’m right.
 
So, what comes next? Black Panther is a dive into the genre known as afrofuturism – which was defined by culture critic Mark Dery as “Speculative fiction that treats African-American themes and addresses African-American concerns in the context of twentieth-century technoculture—and, more generally, African-American signification that appropriates images of technology and a prosthetically enhanced future.” For a good primer on afrofuturism check out this Mashable piece by Siddhant Adlaka. Looking at Black Panther’s success, Hollywood will start to make more TV and movies in the afrofuturisim mode. Indeed, George R.R. Martin (WME|Created By) is executive producing an adaptation of Who Fears Death? by Nnedi Okorafor (Donald Maass Literary Agency) which falls into the afrofuturism category.
 
Another sub genre of fantasy and science fiction written by black authors is Sword and Soul, and would also make for compelling and succesul TV series or movies.  
 
In 1975 Charles R. Saunders looked at the Sword and Sorcery genre, and heroes such as Conan and others who are written as white, and decided to fill a void. So, Saunders created the character Imaro, a Conan-esque warrior who had adventures in Nyumbani – a fantasy version of Africa and thus the sword & soul genre was born. Saunders explains it like this “From the beginning, my stories were based on African history, mythology, and folklore, as opposed to the usual Celtic, Arthurian, and Scandinavian underpinnings of most modern fantasy, from Tolkien to Rowling. I saw a need and believed I could fulfill it.”
 
In recent years other authors have taken up the Sword & Soul mantle like Milton Davis with his Changa’s Safari and Meiji series, Balogun Ojetade author of such novels as Once Upon a Time in Afrika. And Marlon James (winner of the 2015 Man Booker prize for fiction) is currently working on a trilogy of books called The Dark Star trilogy that he’s called an African Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones, the first of which is set to be published in September. There are many more authors, for a good primer on sword and soul check out this article written by Milton Davis and the short story anthology Griots edited by Davis and Saunders.  
 
At the time of this writing, Saunders, Davis, and Ojetade are unrepresented, but they all have websites. Saunders can be found here. Milton Davis has his own publishing company called MVMedia, and Ojetade can be found here. Marlon James is represented by Trident Media Group.
 
As Black Panther’s success proves audiences are hungry for something different, and something that caters to different audiences. It’s time to bring a new genre into the spotlight, and sword & soul can be the next big thing.