Marvel puts out a lot of content these days, but Black Panther: Wakanda Forever feels special. The first Black Panther brought in over a billion at the box office, marked the first time a Marvel movie ever won awards at the Oscars, and felt more meaningful than much of what the studio had put out at the time.
All that would have been pressure enough for any sequel, but Wakanda Forever has an especially difficult job because star Chadwick Boseman passed away after a battle with cancer in 2020. Boseman was iconic in the role of King T’Challa, and Marvel was insistent that they weren’t going to recast the part. Instead, writer/director Ryan Coogler had to do an overhaul of the movie, taking it in a new direction.
“Grief intermingled” with the process of making Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
After years of wondering how the movie would adapt to the loss of Boseman, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s premiere is but a few short months away. The cast and crew are starting to to talk up the film, which will be the capstone to Marvel’s Phase 4. With T’Challa gone, Wakanda Forever will focus more heavily on the movie’s female cast members, like Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), Ramonda (Angela Bassett), Okoye (Danai Gurira), and Letitia Wright, whose character Shuri becomes the Black Panther in the comics. The trailer has played coy with whether the movie version of Shuri will follow that same arc, but we do get a glimpse of someone new in the suit.
The women of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever recently sat down with The New York Times to discuss the movie, and how Boseman’s passing changed the filmmaking process. “There was a lot of stillness, reflection, prayer and meditation to bolster me up as emotionally, mentally and spiritually as possible,” recalled Lupita Nyong’o. “It was a unique experience to step back into this world without our leader. When you have a sophomore film, there’s a lot of expectation. But I think the loss of Chadwick kind of took all that away. I found myself having to radically accept that this was going to be different, and that showing up with as much openness as possible was key.”
“I remember sitting with Ryan , and he helped me process what felt different this time: It was grief,” added Danai Gurira. “So grief intermingled with our process. There were things I couldn’t prepare for, like stepping into the throne room and remembering the last time I was there and getting really hit by that.”
Judging by the emotional trailer, that emotion is going to bleed off the screen when Black Panther: Wakanda Forever hits theaters on November 11.
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h/t The A.V. Club