Martin Freeman: It’s “very strange” making Black Panther 2 without Chadwick Boseman
By Ashley Hurst
Martin Freeman has confirmed that he’s returning to the role of CIA operative Everett K. Ross in Ryan Coogler’s upcoming Black Panther sequel. “Yeah, I am doing the second Black Panther,” he recently told Collider. “I’m going to be speaking to [director] Ryan Coogler soon about what shape that’s going to look like. I have no idea about the script [so] I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Obviously, after Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman’s death from colon cancer in August of last year, the scripts for Black Panther 2 needed to be altered substantially. There’s no doubt it will be a different movie from the one Coogler originally envisioned. “It was very shocking, and still is very, very strange, that he is not here,” Freeman said.
"Just before Chadwick died, if my memory serves correctly, the script had gone in. They had the script and they were working on the script, and then Chadwick died, and [I] sort of immediately thought, ‘Oh, okay, I could see a world where there’s no Black Panther then, because how can you do a Black Panther without Black Panther?’"
Naturally, Freeman is as curious as the rest of us to find out the answer. “I still don’t know what that’s going to look like. And no, obviously, before Chad died, the idea of doing it without him would have been a stupid idea. It would have been crazy. It was very shocking, and still is very, very strange, that he is not here. So, I’m as curious as you are to see what that will look like and I find out quite soon. All I know is that I’m in it.”
Black Panther is expanding with a TV series
Although we don’t know how the movie will handle the character beats, we can be assured that Black Panther 2 will further explore the country of Wakanda, which has become one of the most beloved places in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Disney is even developing a Wakanda TV series.
During Disney’s Investor Day last year, Marvel President Kevin Feige held a presentation where he unveiled the large slate of upcoming Marvel projects. For Black Panther II, he paid tribute to Boseman’s outstanding work and confirmed that they won’t recast King T’Challa. “His portrayal of T’Challa the Black Panther is iconic and transcends any iteration of the character in any other medium from Marvel’s past,” Feige said. “And it’s for that reason that we will not recast the character.”
I think everyone is interested to see what direction they go in. Black Panther 2 is set to premiere on July 8, 2022.
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