Many have wondered what Ryan Coogler would have planned for Black Panther 2 if Chadwick Boseman had never tragically passed away, and now fans finally have closure on that subject.
During a recent interview with The New York Times, the filmmaker spoke candidly and very detailedly about his initial plans for the Black Panther sequel. As Coogler is known to keep details about his films very close to him, the open discussion led to some beautiful insight.
Diving into the details, Coogler gives a near play-by-play retelling of his original sequel plans. He tells the publication that T’Challa’s relationship with his son and how it was affected by The Blip was a key factor. “It was, ‘What are we going to do about the Blip?’ That was the challenge,” says the filmmaker. “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 sons.”
He adds, “In the script, T’Challa was a dad who’d had this forced five-year absence from his son’s life. 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.”
Coogler says the film would’ve been a bit of a summer adventure, seeing the two bond over a ritual turned world-saving mission. “Then it cuts ahead three years, and he’s essentially co-parenting. 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.”
When asked about Namor’s inclusion in the film, he says it would always be Wakanda vs. Talokan, but the inclusion of the United States was even heavier. “It was a combination. Val (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) was much more active,” says Coogler. “It was basically a three-way conflict between Wakanda, the U.S., and Talokan. But it was all mostly from the child’s perspective.”
These new details concerning the original plans are insanely refreshing, as they finally shed light on the fantastic story we could’ve seen. While this didn’t pan out due to the tragic loss of Chadwick Boseman, the legacy of Black Panther and T’Challa has found a way to live on in the MCU.
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.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever reunites Ryan Coogler with his Black Panther stars Danai Gurira (Okoye), Letitia Wright (Shuri), Winston Duke (M’Baku), Lupita Nyong’o (Nakia), Florence Kasumba (Ayo), Angela Bassett (Ramonda) and Martin Freeman (Everett Ross), while new additions include Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams/Ironheart, Tenoch Huerta as Namor, Michaela Coel as Aneka, Mabel Cadena as Namora and Alex Livanalli as Attuma.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is in cinemas now.
