While speaking to The New York Times, Black Panther directed Ryan Coogler revealed what he had planned for the sequel.
Coogler was asked to explain how different the story was when the actor was killed by the famous actress Chadwick Boseman, who received critical acclaim for his role as TChalla/Black Panther. The director revealed that the film was about to address The Blip by a father and son, and particularly through TChalla and his son’s perspective.
For the naked, The Blip signifies the disaster of half of life wiped out by Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War and then released five years later by the heroic team in Avengers: Endgame.
Was it what are we going to do with the PVC? That was the challenge, explained Coogler. We don’t have everything. There was a father-son story going from the perspective of the child, because the first film had been a father-son story that was born from the sons.
In the script, TChalla was a dad, and was forced to leave his children at the expense of five years, Coogler explained. The first scene was a series of animations. You hear the baby name Nakia Nyongo discussing with Toussaint, the couples child. She says, Tell me what you know about your dad. You realize that his dad didn’t know that his dad was the Black Panther. He never met him, and she is married again to a Haitian dude. That night we get back to reality. People visit a toddler for the first time. Soon it’s time to save three years.
After finishing, Coogler revealed that Namor had the same problem as the original plan for the sequel, but would have taken the role of Julia, Louis-Dreyfus and his director, Val, with a bigger role.
It was a mixture of two. Val became much more active, explained Coogler. It was basically a three-way conflict between Wakanda, the USA and Talokan. But it was all mostly children’s perspective.
Wakanda Foreversaw the return of the most Black Panthers original main cast, including Lupita Nyongo as Nakia, Danai Gurira as Okoye, Angela Bassett as Ramonda, Martin Freeman as Everett K. Ross, Letitia Wright as Shuri, Winston Duke as MBaku, and Florence Kasumba as Ayo. Among them were newcomers Tenoch Huerta (Narcos: Mexico) as Namor, Michaela Coel (I May Destroy You), Aneka, Mabel Cadena as Namora and Alex Livinalli as Attuma.