Chadwick Boseman passed away at the age of 43 on Friday after privately battling colon cancer over the past four years. Disney-owned ABC aired Marvel Studios’ Black Panther and a 20/20 special titled Chadwick Boseman: A Tribute for a King to honor the late actor, which led to the networking dominating the ratings on Sunday night.
ABC’s airing of Black Panther ran from 8:00-10:30, drawing in 6.09 million viewers and earning a 1.4 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic. The 20/20 special immediately followed the Marvel Studios film at 10:30 with appearances by Black Panther co-stars Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Forest Whitaker, Danai Gurira, Daniel Kaluuya, and Angela Bassett. The tribute to Boseman scored a 1.1 demo rating and garnered 4.72 million viewers, the second-highest audience total of the evening.
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The Black Panther airing bested the 3.82 viewer total of CBS’s Big Brother (0.9) and a second-round game in the NHL playoffs (0.5), which was viewed by 1.56 million people. Additional competition from a rerun of The Simpsons on FOX (o.2) and MTV Video Music Awards (0.2) proved to be no issue for ABC’s Black Panther night as neither crossed 1 million viewers.
Boseman made his first appearance as T’Challa in Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Civil War. Two years later he would reprise the role as the lead in Black Panther, Marvel Studios’ first film to feature a predominately black cast, before returning for both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Throughout the course of filming these and other non-Marvel projects, Boseman privately underwent multiple surgeries and received chemotherapy treatment after being diagnosed with stage III colon cancer in 2016 before it progressed to stage IV this year.
News of Boseman’s passing came as a shock to both fans and many of his Marvel co-stars. Among those to pay tribute to Boseman are Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Forest Whitaker, Don Cheadle, and many more.
Tributes from fans and celebrities have celebrated Boseman’s many roles over the course of his tragically short career. Still, much of the reflection and assessment of Boseman’s legacy has focused on the influence he had as Black Panther and the impact the film will have on black children for generations to come.
Black Panther is now available on Disney+.
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Source: Deadline