Much has been said about Marvel Studios' plans for T'Challa in recent weeks. Social media scoopers appear to agree; the role will be recast, likely for the next Avengers movies and almost certainly for Ryan Coogler's Black Panther 3. The trades, meanwhile, have yet to chime in.
While the Multiverse opens the door to a new T'Challa being plucked from another reality, all signs still point to young Toussaint/T'Challa II being aged up post-Secret Wars to pick up where his father left off.
The Cosmic Circus' Alex Perez has shared some inside intel of his own today, confirming that he's also heard Toussaint will take over the mantle in Black Panther 3. He also acknowledges that this "doesn't eliminate the possibility of other Black Panther variants showing up in the Avengers' films beforehand."
Interestingly, Perez adds, "[I've heard that] compared to the previous films, Ryan Coogler is interested in leaning into a more horror/supernatural/thriller tone for this film."
That lines up with what we've recently heard about the threequel's villain and points to the franchise getting a new look and feel to go with its next lead (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was a hit but never quite felt different enough considering Shuri stepped into T'Challa's role).
Of course, somewhat contradicting this and everything else we've heard about Black Panther 3 are comments from executive producer Nate Moore.
"The truth is, there’s no truth to those rumors," he said in an interview we shared earlier today. "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]."
He added, "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."
While Marvel Studios is likely exploring its options when it comes to T'Challa's future on screen, it's clearly early days and probably best to take anything we hear with a pinch of salt for the time being.
Letitia Wright's Shuri is still the most likely possibility for the Black Panther we see in the Avengers movies and, beyond that, it will boil down to just how much the MCU changes after Secret Wars' credits roll.
Black Panther 3 doesn't have a release date, though Denzel Washington has been confirmed as the movie's first cast member.