The writers of WAKANDA FOREVER state that M’Baku and Nakia were considered the new black panther

When we learned that a new Black Panther was about to be introduced Black Panther: Wakanda Foreverfans immediately assumed this would be the case Letizia Wrightit’s Shuri. Her taking on the mantle of Black Panther seemed to be the obvious choice of hers as she was her sister, and she was a fan favorite character as well. Oh yeah, she was also the new Black Panther in the comics. So, it really wasn’t a surprise when she’s the one who became the new Black Panther.

According to Wakandan forever writer Joe Roberto Colethere were other characters thought to take on the mantle of Black Panther, including M’Baku (Winston Duke) and Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o). During a recent interview with Rolling Stone, he said:

“We would like to tease ideas and try to extrapolate where the story goes and what is the most impactful choice: what is the best journey? And where do you go after the movie in terms of those characters. M’Baku was certainly someone who got kicked around a bit.

Cole went on to talk about Shuri as the more natural choice saying, “There’s a naturalness, I guess is the best way to put it, to her becoming Panther [because of what happens in the comics]. But you kick the tires on all sorts of ideas. And you just want to make the best decision and do what’s best for the story.

During the interview, the character of Nakia was also considered a great choice for the new Black Panther and Cole replied: “He got kicked! His name was made fun of for sure.

There’s another Black Panther on the way, though, as it’s been revealed that T’Challa fathered a son. This is something that hasn’t changed since the original script. It is revealed in the end credits scene that she lives in Haiti with Nakia. Regarding this aspect of the story, Cole said:

“T’Challa had a child in an earlier iteration of the script before Chad died. The fact that she has a child has always been in the DNA of what we wanted to do. We weren’t sure, after his death, how best to incorporate it. So there have been various iterations of son of him in our new story. And finally we came to the final revelation.

“There was a point where I think when Ramonda [Angela Bassett] goes to Haiti, we had talked about potentially revealing it there. So we knew we wanted it to be part of the movie in some way and we came up with, I think, the best possible version.

Are there any other characters you wish you could have seen as Black Panther?