Marvel's Black Panther is no stranger to breaking records, but the film's newest accomplishment might be its biggest. Director Ryan Coogler's blockbuster will become the first film screened in Saudi Arabia theaters following the end of a 35-year ban on commercial cinemas.

The movie will premiere April 18 in Riyadh, the nation's capital, in a new AMC theater. The adoption of ultraconservative religious standards in Saudi Arabia led to the closing of cinemas in the early 1980s on the orders of hardline Muslim clerics. However, many Saudis have long consumed Western media privately.

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The Black Panther screening is part of Vision 2030, an ambitious economic and social reform initiative championed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to diversify Saudi Arabia's oil-dependent economy. Part of Vision 2030 will see several exhibitors, including AMC, build 350 theaters in the country by 2030.

Saudi Arabia may become a major film market, as many of the country's 32 million inhabitants are under 30 and relatively affluent. Some analysts project that the country could yield more than $1 billion in ticket sales when the project is completed in 2030.

Although the cinemas are unlikely to be segregated by gender, the country is expected to maintain strict control over which films are screened.

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Black Panther has been an enormous critical and commercial success, earning more than $1.280 billion globally. The film has also overtaken Avengers as the highest-grossing superhero movie at the North American box office.

In theaters now, director Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther stars Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa/Black Panther, Michael B. Jordan as N’Jadaka/Erik “Killmonger” Stevens, Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia, Danai Gurira as Okoye, Forest Whitaker as Zuri and Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaue.

(via Variety, BBC)