Black Panther – Wakanda Forever: Ryan Coogler Reveals That the Film Was a ‘Father-Son’ Story Before Chadwick Boseman’s Death

Director Ryan Coogler has revealed the story behind his original script for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The Black Panther director, 36, said that he and fellow screenwriter Joe Robert Cole had planned to centre the sequel on Chadwick Boseman's character T'Challa struggling to learn how to be a father, before Boseman's death to colon cancer in 2020, reports People magazine. Black Panther Wakanda Forever: Tenoch Huerta's Namor Introduces Himself to Queen Ramonda In This New Clip From Letitia Wright's Marvel Film! (Watch Video)

He made the revelation in The New York Times interview. "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," Coogler said, noting that they had shared the script with Boseman in 2020. According to People, Coogler said that they had to work around the idea of the "blip" which took place in Avengers: Infinity War and led to T'Challa and several other Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) characters disappearing for five years. He said T'Challa was supposed to come back from the event to find out that he had a son named Toussaint, with his former love Nakia, played by Lupita Nyong'o. Black Panther - Wakanda Forever: Rihanna's Single 'Lift Me Up' from Marvel's Sequel Is a Perfect Homage to Late Chadwick Boseman!

"In the script, T'Challa was a dad who'd had this forced five-year absence from his son's life," Coogler said. "The first scene was an animated sequence. You hear Nakia talking to Toussaint. She said, 'Tell me what you know about your father.' You realise that he doesn't know his dad was the a Black Panther'"."He's never met him, and Nakia is remarried to a Haitian dude," he added. "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. Then it cuts ahead three years and he's essentially co-parenting." The writers eventually ended up keeping that story element in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, introducing Toussaint to T'Challa's sister Shuri, played by Letitia Wright, in an end credits scene.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 25, 2022 07:29 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).