Earlier today, concept art for Avengers: Doomsday leaked online (you can find a full breakdown here) and, while it's left us with plenty to discuss, the biggest reveal might be who's playing the MCU's new Black Panther.
It was last month when we first learned of Marvel Studios' supposed plans to recast T'Challa following Chadwick Boseman's death in 2020. There have since been conflicting reports but the consensus is that Toussaint/T'Challa II, the hero's son, will be aged up and take his father's place.
Taking a closer look at this concept art for Avengers: Doomsday, we see quite clearly that Marvel Studios has used actor Damson Idris' likeness for the MCU's new Black Panther.
This doesn't mean he's been cast, but it's rare for Marvel Studios to use the likeness of an actor they've not at least spoken to about a role. As we saw in The Fantastic Four: First Steps artwork that's also leaked, when they don't know who will play someone, the character's likeness is typically based on the comics.
It's worth pointing out that Idris responded to the speculation in a now-deleted X post on January 17. When it was put to him that he'd turned down playing Black Panther, the actor responded, "Yes sir. I turned down 007, A co-lead film with Daniel Day Lewis and an Eddie Murphy biopic too."
Idris may well have declined to star in Avengers: Doomsday since this artwork was created but this is enough to make him a very likely frontrunner for the role. The actor is best known for Snowfall, Black Mirror, and Farming. He's also landed the lead role alongside Brad Pitt in this summer's F1 movie.
"The truth is, there’s no truth to those rumors," Black Panther 3 producer Nate Moore recently claimed. "Never say never to anything, we haven’t really had a lot of creative conversations with Ryan Coogler yet, because he’s finishing his film Sinners, which comes out this year.
"We’ll get into it later this year, but everything you read online is not true, if for no other reason than we just haven’t started [working on it]."
"We are still figuring out again exactly what [the next] Avengers is going to be, so we haven't had any real story conversations. I know there's been a lot of chatter online about casting and villains. None of that's true," he continued. "We just haven't gotten there yet, to be honest, but I am very excited to start those conversations hopefully this year."
"We don't know what the story is, so I couldn't tell you whether or not we're open to recasting. It certainly wasn't our instinct for Wakanda Forever. I'll never say never to anything, but it's too early to talk about any of that stuff. We have to figure out what the story's going to be," Moore concluded.
As always, stay tuned for updates as we have them.