One of the biggest surprises in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was the man who appeared to Shuri in the Ancestral Plane after she took the heart-shaped herb. However, some believed that Eric Killmonger's return was decided after the unfortunate passing of Chadwick Boseman.
So did the Marvel Cinematic Universe sequel call on Michael B. Jordan to reprise his role as N'Jadaka as a second option after Boseman's death? Black Panther 2 co-writer Joe Robert Cole has confirmed that Killmonger was always meant to appear in the sequel.
Joe Robert Cole recently spoke to Rolling Stone where he stated that they always intended for Michael B. Jordan's N'Jadaka to be a part of Shuri's story in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
"We always wanted to have Michael return, and I feel like it was always going to be in the Ancestral Plane with Shuri having taken the potion," Cole said.
He then pointed out that Shuri's story is almost the same as Killmonger's tragic origins.
"If you think about it, [in the first movie] his journey was about vengeance as well, and anger and frustration," Cole continued. "That's a part of what we tried to lay in with her early on, the anger of losing someone, the sense of loss. And then how losing her mother would escalate her feelings of wanting vengeance."
He added, "We just tried to build on that, so that he is presenting her with a choice of: Is she going to move towards the direction that Killmonger would move? Or is she going to do something different? The idea was to successfully build the stakes for her so that would resonate. So it would feel earned that she would feel that sort of [yearning for] vengeance."
It's great to know that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever always wanted to show a side of Shuri's story that would be told with the help of Killmonger. We're also loving the idea that Shuri decided not to follow his path.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is now screening in theaters worldwide.
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