Black Panther 2 Was Originally Going to Focus on The Blip

After the death of Chadwick Boseman in 2020 and their decision to recast the role of T'Challa, Marvel, director Ryan Coogler, and their team were forced to change the story of the Black Panther sequel and start from scratch as they now have to deal with the fact that the King of Wakanda is gone. As a result, the film now became a celebration of the late actor and an exploration of grief.

Some fans are wondering about what the original plans for the sequel were back when Boseman was still around. While they previously teased that the film was originally going to be a character study of T'Challa, it looks like the sequel was also going to heavily explore the aftermath of Avengers: Endgame.

Speaking recently with Inverse, Coogler revealed that the original plans for the sequel prior to Boseman's death were also going to explore grief since T'Challa would have dealt with the fact that he was gone for five years as a result of Thanos' snap and his eventual return thanks to The Blip.

"The tone was going to be similar", the director said. "The character was going to be grieving the loss of time, you know, coming back after being gone for five years. As a man with so much responsibility to so many, coming back after a forced five years absence, that’s what the film was tackling. He was grieving time he couldn’t get back. Grief was a big part of it."

However, he also mentioned that despite all the major changes that they made to the story, he confirmed that Namor was always meant to be part of the film at the very beginning. "There were other characters, for sure, that we considered including. Namor was always there," he said.

It sounds like grief has always been a major theme in the sequel even with the original version back when Boseman is still with us and it is an interesting theme to explore in a comic book movie. Now, with the late actor's death, they are going to explicitly explore the theme of grief as well as how they'll move forward after their big loss.

Also Read: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Director Explains How Losing T'Challa Affected Shuri

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is set for release in theaters this November 11. You can check more details about it here.