Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was a solid movie by itself, but every fan is still wondering what the film would have been if Chadwick Boseman was still with us.
In a recent interview with The New York Times (via IndieWire), director Ryan Coogler reveals that it would have been a father-son story that would have focused on T’Challa dealing with having a son after returning from the Blip. Coogler explains:
“It was going to be a father-son story from the perspective of a father, because the first movie had been a father-son story from the perspective of the sons… In the script, T’Challa was a dad who’d had this forced five-year absence from his son’s life. The first scene was an animated sequence. You hear Nakia [Lupita Nyong’o] talking to Toussaint. She says, ‘Tell me what you know about your father.’ You realize that he doesn’t know his dad was the Black Panther. He’s never met him, and Nakia is remarried to a Haitian dude. Then, we cut to reality and it’s the night that everybody comes back from the Blip. You see T’Challa meet the kid for the first time.”
Coogler confirms that the conflict would have still included Namor and Talokan, but everything would be from the perspective of T’Challa’s son. Coogler continues:
“The movie was about a summer that the kid spends with his dad. For his eighth birthday, they do a ritual where they go out into the bush and have to live off the land. But something happens and T’Challa has to go save the world with his son on his hip. That was the movie.”
We can’t tell what specifically changed for the story, but I can imagine the conflict with Talokan is the same with them wanting the governments to stop looking for Vibranium and forcing Wakanda into a corner.
I guess you have to commend Coogler for being able to write around that plot after Boseman’s death, and have it be a fitting send off for him. It’s even interesting how he was able to work in the love child subplot.
For now, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is expected to release on Disney+ sometime in January 2023.
