Ryan Coogler revealed that Chadwick Boseman was “too sick” to learn the unique 180-page script for the Black Panther sequel earlier than his dying in 2020, forcing a whole rewrite of the movie’s course.

The Black Panther director opened up throughout an look on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, sharing that Boseman by no means acquired the prospect to learn the primary draft of the sequel because of his declining well being. “I finished it, and I hit him up to read it, and he was too sick to read, bro. That was kind of how the timing was,” Ryan Coogler mentioned. “He was at a place where it wasn’t going to happen.”

Boseman died in August 2020 after a non-public battle with colon most cancers. His passing despatched shockwaves by way of Hollywood and left Coogler with the daunting job of reimagining the sequel with out its lead. The closing model, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, was launched in 2022 and centered on T’Challa’s sister Shuri, performed by Letitia Wright, as she wrestled with grief and stepped into her brother’s legacy.

Coogler also shared details in regards to the unique storyline, which might have adopted T’Challa and his eight-year-old son throughout a sacred Wakandan ceremony of passage often called the Ritual of Eight. The father and son would have spent eight days within the wild, stripped of instruments, solely to be ambushed by “a different version of Namor,” who ultimately turned the primary antagonist within the launched sequel.

“It was insane, and Chadwick was going to kill it, but life goes as it goes,” Coogler mentioned. “I loved that script. I put so much into that version of the movie because I felt like I had gotten to know Chadwick as a performer… I threw a lot at Chad in the first Panther, but I realised I was just scratching the surface.”

Despite the heartbreak, Coogler mentioned he discovered goal in shifting the story’s focus to the ladies of Wakanda. “We made a movie about women, and we made that movie while I was nursing a broken heart,” he mentioned.

Now, Coogler is making ready to return to Wakanda as soon as once more. A 3rd installment is within the works, and he made it clear that the story is private.

“I got this movie on my heart,” he mentioned. “And yeah, from the outside looking in, you might say, ‘Man, why this f**king dude making another one of those?’ But that’s totally fine, that question makes sense. And it’s my job as a filmmaker to show why.”

Denzel Washington is the one actor confirmed for Black Panther 3 to this point, although particulars about his character stay underneath wraps. The sequel’s launch date has not been introduced.

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