Five years after the death of Chadwick Boseman, Marvel Studios may be planning to introduce a new take on T'Challa to the MCU.
There was a lot of debate about how the studio may intend to proceed with a sequel to Black Panther following Boseman's tragic passing back in August of 2020, and the decision was ultimately made to forge ahead with Wakanda Forever and have another character take up the mantle.
T'Challa's little sister always seemed like the most obvious choice, and Shuri (Letitia Wright) ended up honouring her late brother and mother (Angela Bassett) by suiting-up as Wakanda's new protector.
While the majority of fans felt that this was the most respectful way to proceed, some hoped to see a new actor in the role of T'Challa, and it seems Kevin Feige and co. now agree that enough time has passed.
According to Jeff Sneider, "Marvel is looking to recast its Black Panther hero T'Challa ahead of the two Avengers movies and Ryan Coogler's Black Panther 3."
We assume this would be a Multiversal variant of the character, but there's speculation that it might not be the T'Challa, and instead an older version of his son.
Wakanda Forever concluded with Shuri meeting her nephew, the son T'Challa had with Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), and finally allowing herself to stop mourning her brother's death by burning her funeral robes.
The original plan seemed to be for the lad to succeed his late father by taking up the mantle of Black Panther, and possibly even ruling Wakanda as king. The nature of the Multiverse would allow for a time-jump, but it does sound more likely that Marvel plans to find a new actor to play a version of the same character Boseman played across four MCU films.
If this report is accurate, we can expect the trades to weigh in fairly soon.
What do you make of the prospect of another actor stepping in to play T'Challa in the MCU? Let us know in the comments section down below.
In Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), Shuri (Letitia Wright), M’Baku (Winston Duke), Okoye (Danai Gurira), and the Dora Milaje (including Florence Kasumba), fight to protect their nation from intervening world powers in the wake of King T’Challa’s death. As the Wakandans strive to embrace their next chapter, the heroes must band together with the help of War Dog Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) and Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) and forge a new path for the kingdom of Wakanda. Introducing Tenoch Huerta as Namor, king of a hidden undersea nation, the film also stars Dominique Thorne, Michaela Coel, Mabel Cadena, and Alex Livanalli.