RIP King T’Challah

Jesus H Christ.

That's terribly sad.

I remember seeing an article a few months ago where the writer was concerned with how thin he looked. Given this news, I suppose that explains a few things. I’m glad he was able to keep his illness private at least. So very sad for his family and friends.

I suspect Marvel was at least aware, as I recall articles questioning why they had the sequel pushed back so far. And wasn’t it removed from the Phase 2 line-up at some point? I know originally the release date announced for Black Panther 2 was 2022. I suspect they knew and were hoping that by pushing it back, he’d have time to recover.

It kinda feels heartless to talk about this already, but since the topic of release dates has come up, I'm calling it now: They are absolutely, one hundred percent going to recast the roll! It might push the release back a bit further, but I have no doubt that there will be a Black Panther II not too far down the road.

Honestly, even if we ignore the sh*t ton of money the first movie made, giving Disney all the incentive in the world to want to keep this part of the franchise going, I don't see any other way this could play out. Putting aside its flaws as a movie, Black Panther has surpasses almost everything else in the MCU, not just as a financial success story, but also - probably most importantly - as a cultural phenomenon. That just cannot die with Chadwick Boseman and I kinda doubt that even his biggest fans would even want it to.


This whole situation keeps reminding me of Andy Whitfield's death, the actor who played Spartacus in the first season of that show before also dying of cancer. In his case, it happened even more abrubtly. The show ended up postponing the second season and doing a one season prequel story instead that didn't feature Spartacus, before eventually recasting the character. There was just no other way and Andy even gave his blessing for the decision when his condition became worse.

That actually makes me wonder now whether Chadwick might have had any talks with the Marvel/Disney execs about the future of his role should he not make it, or if, given his situation, that was even something he cared much about.

I think it's both. (And I also agree it's a topic I'm not sure I should be discussing already.)

I think just having T'Challa die off screen or disappear would be a huge disservice to Boseman's work as well as everyone else involved. This isn't like when Heath Ledger passed away (his character was presumably in jail) where they could just move on. Had Nolan kept making films they could have returned to the Joker character later if they wanted with a new actor but they weren't beholden to that.

There's a way to do it that both works in-story and also allows them to honor Boseman. Pass the torch to Shuri (which I think was the plan anyway in the long run, or at least having Shuri step into a bigger role) in a way that not only lets Shuri take up where T'Challa left off and Letitia Wright takes up where Boseman left off. Not linearly in either case, but in their own way. Shuri has her own way of looking at things compared to her brother but at the core they are aligned. They can build on that. Similarly Wright shouldn't feel obligated to literally jump into every cause/charity that Boseman was involved in, but she certainly could look for a way to follow his examples there in some ways. Which for all I know she may have already been doing.