Marvel executive Kevin Fiege has explained why the studio made the decision not to recast Chadwick Boseman in the upcoming sequel to Black Panther.
The first Black Panther movie was released in 2018 and was an enormous success both critically and commercially.
It earned $1.348 billion at the worldwide box office and became the first ever superhero movie to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture.
Tragically, Boseman passed away in 2020 after losing a cancer battle, which eventually raised questions about the future of his character, T'Challa, and the Black Panther franchise as a whole.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will be released this November with T'Challa not being present. Though this decision was made to honour Boseman, there are those that feel the character of T'Challa will be abandoned which could impact those who looked up to him, in particular young, black men.
A petition was created online to recast Boseman, though nothing materalised from that.
Fiege says that nobody replaced Boseman as the impact of his passing was and still is so fresh, while it is important that Marvel movies reflect real-life events even though they are fantastical.
“It just felt like it was much too soon to recast,” he told Empire.
“Stan Lee always said that Marvel represents the world outside your window. And we had talked about how, as extraordinary and fantastical as our characters and stories are, there’s a relatable and human element to everything we do. The world is still processing the loss of Chad. And Ryan poured that into the story.”
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever trailer
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever stars The cast includes Leticia Wright, Lupita Nyong'o, Angela Bassett, Winston Duke, Danai Gurira, Florence Kasumba, Dominique Thorne, Michaela Coel, Tenoch Huerta and Martin Freeman.
In the movie, Wakanda will deal with the aftermath of T'Challa's passing, which was written in to reflect Boseman's real-life passing.
Watch the trailer below:
Comments (0)