Disney/Marvel has gotten the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever promo rolling since the movie premieres in just over a month. Since the first movie was amazing, this sequel was going to be hotly-anticipated no matter what, but of course there’s been a lot of suspense and emotion surrounding the production due to the tragic, untimely death of Chadwick Bosemen in 2020. (I’m sure I’m not alone in saying the first and second trailer both wrecked me.) Chadwick collaborated closely with director Ryan Coogler to conceive of the character and the larger world they built. Ryan says that after Chadwick’s death, he was unsure if he wanted to continue making movies at all, much less return to the Black Panther sequel.

Even on the set of the first Black Panther, Ryan Coogler was always looking to the future. At the time, the director didn’t know how his sprawling superhero story — an ambitious, visually stunning epic and the first Marvel Studios film with a predominantly Black cast — would be received. He certainly didn’t know Black Panther would hit audiences like a tidal wave, changing the culture as both a box-office juggernaut and eventual Best Picture nominee. His primary goal was just to finish the film in front of him, especially as Black Panther’s 2018 release date crept closer and closer.

But while he was on set or in the editing bay, Coogler found himself daydreaming about what the future of Wakanda might hold — what unexplored corners he might investigate, what new characters he might someday introduce. Soon, it looked like he would get his chance: Almost immediately after Black Panther hit theaters, Marvel gave the sequel an official green light, and Coogler got to work bringing those daydreams to life.

Then, the unthinkable happened. Chadwick Boseman, the luminous hero who broke barriers as the leader of Wakanda, died in August 2020 after a private battle with colon cancer. He was only 43. Coogler suddenly found himself grieving not only the loss of his star but a close friend, a collaborator who had helped shape Black Panther since the beginning. The future they’d spent years imagining had dimmed, and Coogler wasn’t sure whether he even wanted to return to Wakanda — or ever return to filmmaking.

“I was at a point when I was like, ‘I’m walking away from this business,'” Coogler, 36, admits. ‘I didn’t know if I could make another movie period, [let alone] another Black Panther movie, because it hurt a lot. I was like, ‘Man, how could I open myself up to feeling like this again?'”

In the days and weeks following Boseman’s death, Coogler started replaying memories in his head. He would rewatch old footage of himself with Boseman, or he’d listen to interviews where his friend would speak about what the character of T’Challa and Wakanda meant to him. The actor had always been a fierce advocate for the film, and as Coogler listened to Boseman’s words, he found himself thinking about the future again. “I was poring over a lot of our conversations that we had, towards what I realized was the end of his life,” the director explains. “I decided that it made more sense to keep going.”

The result is Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, a bittersweet epic (out Nov. 11) that honors Boseman’s legacy while expanding the world he loved so much. Coogler returns as director and co-writer, reteaming with original Black Panther co-writer Joe Robert Cole, and the sequel picks up in the wake of King T’Challa’s death, as the fictional African nation mourns the loss of its beloved leader. Familiar faces like Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), Shuri (Letitia Wright), Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), Okoye (Danai Gurira), and M’Baku (Winston Duke) are not only grieving their king but fighting to protect their home from new dangers.

[From Entertainment Weekly via HuffPost]

The EW feature (worth a read in its entirety for more info about production) really lays bare Ryan’s feelings and thought process in the aftermath of this tragic loss. He and Chadwick were friends and worked closely together on the first movie. They were making plans and imagining the future of the characters and the world for the second movie when he passed. Of course Ryan initially wouldn’t want to continue on without him, on something they were excited for and planned to do together. And it makes sense that that tragedy, that grief, would influence his perspective on his career, on filmmaking overall. Who among us hasn’t felt too vulnerable and questioned their choices following a life-changing event? As a fan, of course, I’m glad Ryan realized from watching and remembering interviews and conversations with Chadwick that he could move forward with the film. I’m sure re-contextualizing some of those conversations after Chadwick’s death put things in a new light. I know the movie will be sad, but I’m looking forward to seeing what they’ve done with the story to honor Chadwick and T’Challa and move forward.

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