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Black Panther

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Captain Marvel had Nick Fury be very convincingly 20-40 years younger. And Black Panther is usually wearing a fully concealing costume. It seems like it should be possible to have a CGI Black Panther appear on-screen for the opening act of Black Panther 2 just long enough to be badass and then die, retire or otherwise have something happen that will explain his continued absence from the franchise.
 
The man has been dead a week, so let's maybe cool it on the speculation about how his comic book franchise can/must continue.

T'Challa wasn't just some other superhero you can slot in a different actor after a respectable three month mourning period in the press. He's literally an icon of black liberation. Frankly I think it's more than a little ghoulish the way the nerd film industry wasted no time in pivoting to the rumor mill, especially as by Coogler's own admission that he was writing BP2 specifically for Boseman.
 
You can recast without implying people are interchangeable good lord. The question is really how to do it tactfully. There's just huge shoes to fill and I don't think anyone wants to even think about this before he's been laid to rest.
 
Why don't they just make the Black Panther into a group effort between Nakia, Shuri, M'Baku, Okoye, and whoever else?
 
Or just recast the part? Like why is this a bridge too far? The poor man died, but that doesn't mean the character must also die with him. On every level it makes sense. It allows T'Challa to be a major part of the MCU, it allows a young black actor who might not get a lot of opportunities in Hollywood to get a massive amount of exposure, and it means there doesn't have to be a year plus delay in the production to rewrite the entire film. Chadwick Boseman was an amazing actor who died way too young, but that doesn't mean he was the only man in Hollywood able to play Black Panther.
 
VolantRedX said:
Or just recast the part? Like why is this a bridge too far? The poor man died, but that doesn't mean the character must also die with him. On every level it makes sense. It allows T'Challa to be a major part of the MCU, it allows a young black actor who might not get a lot of opportunities in Hollywood to get a massive amount of exposure, and it means there doesn't have to be a year plus delay in the production to rewrite the entire film. Chadwick Boseman was an amazing actor who died way too young, but that doesn't mean he was the only man in Hollywood able to play Black Panther.
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Because Boseman is an icon to black people, and Disney doesn't want to look like they think Black People are interchangeable. Recasting without coming off that way would be nigh impossible, because one of the execs has literally said they are.
 
Jcogginsa said:
Because Boseman is an icon to black people, and Disney doesn't want to look like they think Black People are interchangeable. Recasting without coming off that way would be nigh impossible, because one of the execs has literally said they are.
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But like you could just release a statement saying "Chadwick is in our hearts but the show must go on". It's not like there's a contract dispute and they figure they'll recast the part to show they don't need him. This is literally a situation where their only options are "radically rewrite the new film in a very obvious way to kill off one of the biggest black superheroes in film to avoid looking bad" or "recast the part to carry on with the story." Like you don't want to imply that black people are interchangeable but you want to kill a prominent black icon out of some attempt to seem respectful?
 
VolantRedX said:
But like you could just release a statement saying "Chadwick is in our hearts but the show must go on". It's not like there's a contract dispute and they figure they'll recast the part to show they don't need him. This is literally a situation where their only options are "radically rewrite the new film in a very obvious way to kill off one of the biggest black superheroes in film to avoid looking bad" or "recast the part to carry on with the story." Like you don't want to imply that black people are interchangeable but you want to kill a prominent black icon out of some attempt to seem respectful?
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To a lot of people, that's not killing the character, it's recognizing that the character has died
 
Jcogginsa said:
To a lot of people, that's not killing the character, it's recognizing that the character has died
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But it hasn't. The actor has died. Fiction and reality are two different things. This idea that characters must never be recast is weird and a little gross, and basically amounts to saying "our films have three major black superheroes, but we're going to kill one of them off because Chadwick has zero peers in Hollywood and no one could do the character justice besides him".
 
VolantRedX said:
But it hasn't. The actor has died. Fiction and reality are two different things. This idea that characters must never be recast is weird and a little gross, and basically amounts to saying "our films have three major black superheroes, but we're going to kill one of them off because Chadwick has zero peers in Hollywood and no one could do the character justice besides him".
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Chadwick Boseman had an outsized influence on his character's portrayal. It's impossible to bring the character back. A Recast would make an entirely different character.
 
I'm just generally iffy on recasting myself. Like if we were talking about this scenario with Chris Evans then I'd be arguing for them to crank up Bucky's role.
 
bluntblade said:
I'm just generally iffy on recasting myself. Like if we were talking about this scenario with Chris Evans then I'd be arguing for them to crank up Bucky's role.
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I definitely agree with this. Furthermore there are options to explain what happened. I recently rewatched Black Panther and T'Challa was very nearly killed. He received the Heart-Shaped Herb and became the Black Panther again but it wouldn't be too hard to use that as an explanation - T'Challa wasn't completely healed. Even Wakandan medicine wasn't able to repair all the damage. T'Challa was on borrowed time since then. Thus why he was so focused on changing the culture of Wakanda that resulted in all the problems his people faced in that film. If he was expecting another 3 or 4 decades of active life (which he should have gotten barring injury or accident) he would have had time to make reforms. If he wasn't expecting to live very long he would need to make more drastic changes. Oh, and for bonus points he could take the blame for any problems knowing he'd literally take the blame to his grave and give his successor a better position to deal with said problems.

Or not. I'm hopeful that Disney can come up with a good story-related reason for T'Challa's passing. As for characters who can step into the role of the Black Panther there are:
  • Nakia - T'Challa's former love interest (and apparently again at the end of his film) but who turned it down for being a spy and not a warrior. Having her training into the role with Okoye could be interesting to watch if done well.
  • Okoye - As the head of the Dora Milaje she's been shown to be a warrior and soldier in her own right with a strong sense of loyalty. Okoye is a logical candidate especially if Shuri ends up on the throne.
  • Shuri - The young princess is more of a "Tony Stark / Iron Man" or "Spider-man" style hero (technology, intellect, and cunning) but has been shown able to fight.. with more technology. She was the champion of her tribe during T'Challa's initial challenge series. She might have refused to challenge him but I doubt she'd have gotten that role without being able to at least put up a fight against someone on T'Challa's level.
  • M'Baku - While he is a very traditionalist leader, M'Baku has Wakanda's best interests at heart. (Behind his own tribe's best interests, but still..) M'Baku stepped in when Killmonger decided to ignore tradition and simply have T'Challa killed. He is a skilled warrior and there's plenty of cultural threads to explore as M'Baku clearly does not worship Bast nor the legend of the Black Panther.
So that's four characters off the top of my head who could step into the role of the next Black Panther. And all four characters give the MCU team a great way to show their respect for Chadwick Boseman by mourning during the film. (Or at least remembering him.)
 
Nicholai said:
I definitely agree with this. Furthermore there are options to explain what happened. I recently rewatched Black Panther and T'Challa was very nearly killed. He received the Heart-Shaped Herb and became the Black Panther again but it wouldn't be too hard to use that as an explanation - T'Challa wasn't completely healed. Even Wakandan medicine wasn't able to repair all the damage. T'Challa was on borrowed time since then. Thus why he was so focused on changing the culture of Wakanda that resulted in all the problems his people faced in that film. If he was expecting another 3 or 4 decades of active life (which he should have gotten barring injury or accident) he would have had time to make reforms. If he wasn't expecting to live very long he would need to make more drastic changes. Oh, and for bonus points he could take the blame for any problems knowing he'd literally take the blame to his grave and give his successor a better position to deal with said problems.

Or not. I'm hopeful that Disney can come up with a good story-related reason for T'Challa's passing. As for characters who can step into the role of the Black Panther there are:
  • Nakia - T'Challa's former love interest (and apparently again at the end of his film) but who turned it down for being a spy and not a warrior. Having her training into the role with Okoye could be interesting to watch if done well.
  • Okoye - As the head of the Dora Milaje she's been shown to be a warrior and soldier in her own right with a strong sense of loyalty. Okoye is a logical candidate especially if Shuri ends up on the throne.
  • Shuri - The young princess is more of a "Tony Stark / Iron Man" or "Spider-man" style hero (technology, intellect, and cunning) but has been shown able to fight.. with more technology. She was the champion of her tribe during T'Challa's initial challenge series. She might have refused to challenge him but I doubt she'd have gotten that role without being able to at least put up a fight against someone on T'Challa's level.
  • M'Baku - While he is a very traditionalist leader, M'Baku has Wakanda's best interests at heart. (Behind his own tribe's best interests, but still..) M'Baku stepped in when Killmonger decided to ignore tradition and simply have T'Challa killed. He is a skilled warrior and there's plenty of cultural threads to explore as M'Baku clearly does not worship Bast nor the legend of the Black Panther.
So that's four characters off the top of my head who could step into the role of the next Black Panther. And all four characters give the MCU team a great way to show their respect for Chadwick Boseman by mourning during the film. (Or at least remembering him.)
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No offense to the others, but M'Baku was *really* popular as I recall. He did a really good job in the first movie as a non-villain foil to the hero(es).
 
Arawn_Emrys said:
No offense to the others, but M'Baku was *really* popular as I recall. He did a really good job in the first movie as a non-villain foil to the hero(es).
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He was my favourite character with the best lines.

Though I think it will be Okoye who will take up the Black Panther suit, while Shuri stays the Queen and tech-support, possibly after a confrontation with a villain where Shuri doesn't feel cut out to be the Panther.
 
Ultimately, I think Ryan Coogler will probably (?) have the final say on whether a recast happens or not. No matter what he decides I will roll with it.
 
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