Wakanda Forever Producer Kevin Feige Says “Very Special” Sequel Honors Chadwick Boseman

Marvel Studios President and producer Kevin Feige updates Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, saying the “very particular” sequel from director Ryan Coogler honors Chadwick Boseman. After the 43-year-old King T’Challa actor died in August 2020, Feige confirmed in December that Marvel would not recast the character as a result of Boseman’s portrayal “is iconic and transcends any iteration of the character in every other medium from Marvel’s previous.” As a substitute, to “honor the legacy that Chad helped us construct,” Feige revealed Wakanda Endlessly would “proceed to discover the world of Wakanda and all of the wealthy and different characters launched within the first movie.”

Boseman’s demise from a personal four-year battle with colon most cancers “hit all of us extraordinarily arduous and concurrently it hit the world as a result of we did not know both, and there have been all types of questions,” Feige mentioned in a brand new interview with Rotten Tomatoes. “Our first thought, for a lot of weeks afterward, had nothing to do with the film. It needed to do with him and his household and his spouse and his legacy, and actually, we had been seeking to Ryan Coogler to steering as one, frankly, all the time ought to about nearly every little thing in life.”

Coogler, who penned multiple drafts of Black Panther II with returning co-writer Joe Robert Cole, engaged in conversations with Marvel Studios that “primarily got here right down to persevering with the legacy of Wakanda and persevering with with that storyline in a really significant, respectful, and but nonetheless hopeful and enjoyable and thrilling manner, which was tough after dropping Chad.”

“I’ll say that Ryan and our producer Nate Moore, and the whole forged and our co-writer Joe Robert Cole, have completed some exceptional issues within the story, within the draft,” Feige mentioned. “The staff is assembling as soon as once more, and cameras roll within the not-too-distant future on that. It is going to be extraordinarily emotional throughout the board, however I feel they’ve one thing very particular in thoughts.”

Plot particulars for the Black Panther sequel stay beneath wraps. It is rumored Netflix’s Narcos: Mexico actor Tenoch Huerta will play Namor the Sub-Mariner, a generally ally and generally enemy of Wakanda within the Marvel comedian books, in his debut within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Starring Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Winston Duke, Martin Freeman, Letitia Wright, and Angela Bassett, Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever opens in theaters on July 8, 2022.