Studio executives around Hollywood are reeling at yet another confirmation that people will pay money to see good movies, regardless of race or gender.

This weekend Black Panther is leading the charge at the box office, helmed by a cast and creative team of mostly Black filmmakers, and widely touted by critics as perhaps the best Marvel superhero film of all time.

“We wanted to give these stories a mainstream voice, pushing for equal representation in the industry,” a Marvel spokesman said.

“And also there are lots of Black people who buy tickets to things too. Think of all the money we could make.”

This follows a string of recent successes for movies that Hollywood has been reluctant to fund until about a year ago when they realised that there were cinemagoers who weren’t white males.

Last year, Jordan Peele’s horror Get Out broke records and became one of the most successful independent films of all time. Similarly, both Rogue One and Star Wars: The Last Jedi were hailed for their diverse cast and subversive approach to traditional Star Wars storytelling. They were also, shockingly, good movies.

“Honestly I feel a bit silly that I didn’t see this before,” a spokesman from Paramount said.

“All sorts of people pay money to see good movies! I just assumed African-Americans only watched Tyler Perry on DVD and women only cared about Grey’s Anatomy.”

It’s rumoured that in response to Black Panther‘s success, executives in charge of the DC cinematic universe have held an emergency meeting to calculate how much more Wonder Woman they need to put in future movies to make them even slightly watchable. Despite this, they are still not convinced.

“I dunno, I reckon we can do another few dark Batman things first, just to make sure,” a DC spokesman said.

“We don’t want to make any rash decisions like putting Patty Jenkins in charge of the whole thing!”