‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ Was A Father-Son Adventure Before Chadwick Boseman’s Death

SPOILER WARNING

This article is about one of the most important scenes from ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’

Just over a month ago ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’, the Marvel Studios project in charge of closing Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was released in theaters. The post-credits scene showed us one of the film’s biggest surprises, T’Challa and Nakia’s son, named after his father. As reported by a part of the ‘Wakanda Forever’ creative team, it was always kept in mind that audiences would meet the kid in ‘Black Panther 2’but in the original script, that is, before Chadwick Boseman’s death, this introduction to the character and its impact would have been addressed differently.

After Boseman’s death, the script of ‘Wakanda Forever’ has undergone major changes, but through the statements of Ryan Coogler, director and writer of ‘Black Panther 2, and Joe Robert Cole, co-writer, we can get an idea of what was the movie like before the tragedy happened. In an interview with the New York Times, the filmmakers revealed that initially the film would tell a post-blip story (the return of the characters after their disappearance due to Thanos’ snap) in which, after a five-year absence, T’Challa returns to his son’s life in in contact with him, with a boy who has no memory of his father.“T’Challa was a father who was forcibly absent from his son’s life for five years. You realize he didn’t know his father was Black Panther. She never met him and Nakia married a Haitian man. Then we come back back to reality and it’s the night everyone returns from the blip You see T’Challa meeting the boy for the first time.says Coogler in the interview.

In order for the father-son relationship to develop better, the script had a three-year time jump from the blip, so little T’Challa would be a little older (eight years to be exact) and more playable than a five-year-old. This version of the film revolves around an adventure T’Challa and his son embark on to celebrate his eighth birthday, but ends up being affected by a worldwide conflict. “T’Challa must go save the world with his son by his side”, Coogler summarizes the plot of the film, clarifying that the introduction of this character has always been a main idea and with much more prominence than his brief appearance in the result that has arrived in theaters. Will the little Black Panther one day live an adventure inspired by this script, but at the hands of another character?

When will we see him again?

One of the big questions that “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” left is when and where we will see the child T’Challa again in the MCU. It would not be logical for the introduction of this character to remain a simple anecdote, the normal thing is that if they have introduced him they have plans for him. At the moment, a new installment of ‘Black Panther’ has not been confirmed, but the success achieved by both films leaves the door more than open to see a third Wakanda-related project. If so, it would be the right place to develop the character and to introduce the audience to the one who has all the possibilities to soon become the new Black Panther. At the moment that work belongs to Shuri, his aunt and heroine with whom he was able to experience the story that Coogler and Cole never told.. Only time will answer the many unknowns and possibilities left by the ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ post-credits scene.