DUBAI: After the death of “Black Panther” star Chadwick Boseman in August 2020, the film’s creators were unsure if a sequel should even be made, even though director and co-writer Ryan Coogler was already elbows deep working on a new story.
“It was the shock (Boseman’s death) turned into, ‘well, you know what? What do we do? What should we do? Should we do anything?'” Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige said at a virtual news conference ahead of the release of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” on Nov. 10 in the Middle East. “And I think relatively soon it was determined that this amazing ensemble of characters and this world that had been created on screen needed to continue.”
With “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” audiences are once again diving in to the world of Wakanda, but without Boseman’s T’Challa. Among the returning stars are Angela Bassett, Letitia Wright, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira and newcomer Tenoch Huerta, who plays antagonist Namor.
“When you lose somebody, there’s like a blast radius,” said Coogler, of the driving theme of the sequel. “It’s like a bomb that goes off and who was the closest to it, that’s who we explored (in the movie). And the main characters, their identities were kind of wrapped up in this man.”
Gurira, who plays General Okoye in the film, said: “The key thing anchoring me was the goal of honoring him, and the way he loved excellency. He loved to see us shine and loved to see us do our thing. And we’d go to him and say, ‘what do you think about this?’ And he would always give us so much encouragement about doing great things. And he had such great taste. So I think that was really an anchoring aspect throughout the process for me.”
Even Rihanna’s lead single for the film’s soundtrack, “Lift Me Up,” was made in honor of Boseman. “Once she played us the record, she said straight up, ‘I did it. I did this for Chad,'” Coogler said.
But at the beating heart of the story is Shuri, T’Challa’s younger sister, played by Guyanese British actress Wright, who said: “It was just Ryan’s guidance on how do we create a full arc of this human being, of this young woman going through something alongside her fellow family members in general and Wakandans?
“What does that look like when your heart is broken?”