Tomorrow's episode of What If...? will see Chadwick Boseman's T'Challa suit up as Star-Lord in a reality where he was taken from Earth by the Ravagers as a young boy instead of Peter Quill.
It's an incredible 30 minutes of television, and one that the late actor clearly had a lot of fun being part of. While he is expected to appear in at least a few more instalments of the animated series, this episode is essentially his final leading performance as the Black Panther character, making it all the more special.
Talking at last night's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings premiere, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige revealed how Boseman's work in What If...? influenced an earlier version of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. "We didn't know it would be his final performance obviously. He came in numerous times, was so excited about it," the executive explained.
"He read the episode that airs 24 hours from now and then came back and said 'I really love this version of T'Challa.' And we had a conversation after that with Ryan [Coogler] about 'How do we get some of this voice, none of the storyline, but just some of that voice' into [Black] Panther 2. Now of course it's remarkably sad and bittersweet, but I'm very happy we have it and I'm very happy he did it for us. I'm excited for the fans to see that as well."
What If...?'s version of T'Challa is quite a bit funnier and light-hearted in his approach to tackling situations, but also very proactive in his goals to protect the galaxy. As a result, it's easy to appreciate why Boseman hoped to bring some of that version of T'Challa to the Black Panther sequel, and a terrible shame we won't get to see it.
Check out Feige's comments in full below: