After the sudden death of actor Chadwick Boseman from colon cancer, Marvel Studios and filmmaker Ryan Coogler were left with a difficult proposition – how to proceed with a “Black Panther” sequel without their main star?
They made it clear from the get-go there were no plans to recast or to digitally recreate the actor, but the project was going ahead and almost all the major players from the previous film would be returning.
With production now underway, there remains the obvious question as to how they will narratively deal with T’Challa’s absence. One of the film’s co-stars, Angela Bassett, has revealed that getting the script right has been a tricky thing and co-writers Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole have gone through multiple variations. She tells ET Online:
“I don’t know what it’s going to look like at all. There have been about five incarnations of the script, and I hear another one’s coming. Of course, with our dear king [Boseman] going on to glory, a lot of things had to be shifted and changed. So, thankfully, [director] Ryan [Coogler] and [writer] Joe Robert Cole, they’re just such masterful storytellers that they’ve found a way into this world and hopefully it will be satisfying, I think, for the fans and it will be honorable of our Chad. We love our king.”
The original film not only became a billion-dollar hit internationally it also snagged several Oscars and scored a Best Picture nomination.
Whether “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” can match that, we’ll see. Shooting on the series will continue in Atlanta for the next few months. An untitled Wakanda series is also in the works for the Disney+ service.