Marvel’s multiverse has become a narrative Swiss army knife capable of slicing through the thorniest of creative dilemmas and papering over the widest of cracks. That said, few dilemmas are as sensitive as how to move forward with a superhero as iconic as Black Panther. Chadwick Boseman’s portrayal of T’Challa wasn’t just a performance – it was a cultural touchstone, woven so tightly into the fabric of modern blockbuster cinema that imagining anyone else in the role feels like attempting to rewrite history. Four years after Boseman’s untimely death from colon cancer, Marvel faces the delicate task of continuing a legacy that seems impossible to replicate.
If rumblings out of Hollywood this week have foundation, however, the studio is beginning to countenance just that, a new T’Challa from an alternate reality who presumably finds his way into the mainstream Marvel universe via one of the umpteen ways we’ve seen superheroes such as Doctor Strange, various Spider-Men and Scarlet Witch crossing the boundaries between one reality and another. Jeff Sneider of the InSneider newsletter reports that the studio is finally “firmly open” to bringing back the king of Wakanda, despite previous attempts to recast the role having getting rebuffed by actors who didn’t want to jeopardise their careers by “stepping into Boseman’s gigantic shoes”.
This might come as something of a surprise to Letitia Wright (T’Challa’s sister Shuri), who took up the mantle of the royal Avenger in the reasonably well-received 2022 sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – though of course, she was not playing T’Challa himself. Wright has previously hinted a third film is in the works, though Marvel has not yet announced it is entering production. “We need a little bit of a break, we need to regroup and [director] Ryan [Coogler] needs to get back into the lab,” she told Variety in January 2023. “So it’s going to take a little while, but we’re really excited for you guys to see that.”
