Hollywood is finally acknowledging what audiences knew all along: diversity sells.

U.S. film and TV ticket buyers are becoming increasingly diverse, voting with their dollars for content that looks like them and is produced by people who look like them, according to the 2017 Hollywood Diversity Report.

This proved true in the box office in 2017. “Hidden Figures,” the story of three black women who worked at NASA in the segregated ’60s, overtook earnings of Academy darling “LaLa Land.” This happened weeks before the 2017 Academy Awards.

The 90th Academy Awards ceremony is scheduled for March 4, 2018.

Disney-Marvel’s “Black Panther” movie is outpacing all superhero movies in advance ticket sales for Fandango’s online tickets service, eclipsing 2016’s “Batman v Superman.”

From Variety. Story by Dave McNary.

Fandango reported Wednesday that “Black Panther” had topped daily ticket sales in the wake of its world premiere and first screenings on Monday night — even though it doesn’t open in theaters until Feb. 16.

According to a Fandango survey of more than 1,000 “Black Panther” moviegoers: 97% are looking forward to a different kind of superhero movie; 95% look forward to the film’s positive messages; 93% said they couldn’t wait to see Chadwick Boseman in his own “Black Panther” movie after seeing him in “Captain America: Civil War;” 86% are excited to see the film’s all-female guards/warriors, the Dora Milaje; and 85% are intrigued by the film’s exotic setting in the mythical African kingdom of Wakanda.

“The buzz on ‘Black Panther’ is electric,” Fandango managing editor Erik Davis said. “Early screening audiences say it is one of Marvel’s best movies ever, and the positive word-of-mouth is helping drive the movie’s spectacular advance ticket sales.”

The film also stars Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, and Michael B. Jordan. Ryan Coogler directed the movie from a script he co-wrote with Joe Robert Cole.

Read more at Variety.