Posted in: Marvel Studios, Movies | Tagged: black panther 2, black panther ii, black panther: wakanda forever, ryan coogler

Ryan Coogler Shared Some Details From An Early Black Panther 2 Script

Director Ryan Coogler has revealed some details about a draft Black Panther 2 script, which was finished before Chadwick Boseman passed away.

When Black Panther was released back in 2018, it was not only a critical smash hit, but it also went on to be a massive cultural moment. We all knew that a sequel would be here eventually, and when we saw T'Challa return in Avengers: Endgame, we all wondered what Ryan Coogler would do with a post-snap Wakanda. Then, Chadwick Boseman passed away after fighting a very private battle with cancer. It really hit a lot of people hard when we found out that Boseman, known for almost his entire run as the Black Panther that he had cancer and continued on. Black Panther 2 was already in the works, and obviously, major changes would have to be made if another film were to happen. However, we never got a clear answer from Coogler or anyone involved, just far into planning, they were with that first version of the film. It turns out pretty far, and while on the Happy Sad Confused Podcast (via Variety), Coogler explained the general plot for the first version of the script.

"The big thing with the script was a thing called the Ritual of 8 where a prince is 8 years old, he must spend 8 days in the bush with his father," Coogler said. "The rule is for those 8 days the prince can ask the father any question and the father must answer. In the course of those 8 days, Namor launches an attack… he had to deal with someone who's insanely dangerous but because of this ritual, his son had to be joined at his hip the whole time or else they'd violate this ritual that had never been broken. It was insane. Chadwick was going to kill it, but life goes as it goes."

Coogler said that he tried to send the finished draft of Black Panther 2 to Boseman, but "he was too sick" at the time. "He was at a place where it wasn't going to happen," Coogler added. "Our relationship was very interesting. He meant a lot of me but I found out after his passing from his family and his friends about how much I meant to him. That fucked me up pretty good. I wonder if he knew how much he meant to me. I did wonder… But I loved that script. I put so much into that version of the movie because I felt like I had gotten to know Chadwick as a performer. I threw a lot at him in the first 'Panther,' but I realized I was just scratching the surface. It was a 180-page draft."

Obviously, trying to pose the questions of 'what if' isn't going to get us anywhere, but hearing how we got from point A, Black Panther 2, to point B, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, is interesting. One of the plot points that people took issue with was the introduction of T'Challa's son, as it felt like they were trying to replace him by adding this new character. However, to find out that his son was present in the version of the script before Boseman passed away makes his presence at the end of Wakanda Forever feel a lot more genuine and less like Marvel forcefully trying to pass the torch. A third film is in the works, but at the time of writing, we don't know much about it.

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