Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was one of the best movies of 2022. However, writers Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole initially had a very different plan for the sequel prior to the tragic passing of Chadwick Boseman, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
- Coogler, who also directs the Black Panther films, explained that the original plan for the film was focused largely on “the blip,” with T’Challa dealing with the fact that he just vanished for five years.
- Coogler also explained that the sequel was going to follow the father-son theme of its predecessor:
- “That was the challenge. It was absolutely nothing like what we made. It was going to be a father-son story from the perspective of a father, because the first movie had been a father-son story from the perspective of the son.”
- The film was still going to feature the introduction of T’Challa’s son, Toussaint, but the child was going to have a much larger role to play.
- Coogler explained that the film was set to open with an animated scene featuring a conversation between Toussaint and his mother, Nakia:
- “The first scene was an animated sequence. You hear Nakia talking to Toussaint. She says, ‘Tell me what you know about your father.’ You realize that he doesn’t know his dad was the Black Panther. He’s never met him, and Nakia is remarried to a Haitian dude. Then, we cut to reality and it’s the night that everybody comes back from the Blip. You see T’Challa meet the kid for the first time.”
- Toussaint was going to be with T’Challa after a bit of a time jump and Coogler explains what would have happened next:
- “We had some crazy scenes in there for Chad, man. Our code name for the movie was ‘Summer Break,’ and the movie was about a summer that the kid spends with his dad. For his eighth birthday, they do a ritual where they go out into the bush and have to live off the land. But something happens and T’Challa has to go save the world with his son on his hip. That was the movie.”
- The theme of grief was still going to play a large role in the film however. It was just going to be a different kind:
- “The tone was going to be similar. The character was going to be grieving the loss of time, you know, coming back after being gone for five years. As a man with so much responsibility to so many, coming back after a forced five years absence, that’s what the film was tackling. He was grieving time he couldn’t get back. Grief was a big part of it.”
More on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever:
- In Marvel Studios’ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), Shuri (Letitia Wright), M’Baku (Winston Duke), Okoye (Danai Gurira) and the Dora Milaje (including Florence Kasumba) fight to protect their nation from intervening world powers in the wake of King T’Challa’s death.
- As the Wakandans strive to embrace their next chapter, the heroes must band together with the help of War Dog Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) and Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) and forge a new path for the kingdom of Wakanda.
- Introducing Tenoch Huerta Mejía as Namor, ruler of a hidden undersea nation, the film also stars Dominique Thorne, Michaela Coel, Mabel Cadena and Alex Livinalli.
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, directed by Ryan Coogler and produced by Kevin Feige and Nate Moore, opened in U.S. theaters November 11, 2022.
- Marvel Studios’ Black Panther remains the number 1 film of all time in both East and West Africa.
- Check out Mack’s review of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever here.