SPOILERS AHEAD FOR “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”
With “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” now out in cinemas, the new film sees the mantle of the Black Panther passed down to Letitia Wright’s Shuri who takes over the role following the death of her brother T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman).
Whilst she seems a natural choice, it wasn’t so cut-and-dried when it came to writing it, according to screenwriter Joe Robert Cole. Speaking with Rolling Stone, Cole revealed other characters were considered in the writer’s room as potential replacements:
“We would kick around the ideas, and try to extrapolate where the story goes and what’s the most impactful choice – what’s the best journey? and where do you go after the film in terms of those characters. M’Baku (Winston Duke) certainly was someone that got kicked around a little bit.”
When the reporter suggested Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) would’ve been a great choice, Cole responded: “That got kicked around! Her name got kicked around for sure.”
Ultimately Shuri was an easier decision as the character becomes the new Black Panther in the Marvel comic books:
“There’s a natural organic-ness, I guess is the best way to say it, to her becoming Panther [because of what happens in the comics]. But you kick the tires on all sorts of ideas. And you just want to make the best decision and do what’s best for the story.”
One thing that stayed in the script, despite the ground-up overhaul after Chadwick Boseman’s death, was the existence of T’Challa’s child, who was revealed in the mid-credits scene as living in Haiti with Nakia. Cole says:
“T’Challa had a child in a previous iteration of the script prior to Chad’s passing. Him having a child was always in the DNA of what we wanted to do. We just weren’t sure, after he passed, about the best way to incorporate him. So there were various iterations of his son being in our new story. And we finally landed on the reveal at the end.
There was a point where I think when Ramonda [Angela Bassett] goes to Haiti, we had talked about potentially having him be revealed there. So we knew we wanted him to be a part of the movie in some way, and landed, I think, on the best possible version.”
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is currently in theaters everywhere.
