KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 24 — Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was going to be a father-son ‘summer break’ movie, according to director Ryan Coogler.
In an interview with the New York Times, Coogler revealed the film’s original storyline before the passing of actor Chadwick Boseman in August 2020.
The sequel would revolve around the five-year absence of T'Challa (played by Boseman) from Wakanda, due to being ‘bliped’ from existence after the events of Avengers: Infinity War.
Namor would still serve as the film's villain but T’Challa’s relationship with love interest Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) would be further explored with their child, Toussaint.
“In the (original) script, T’Challa was a dad who’d had this forced five-year absence from his son’s life,” Coogler said.
“You realise that he (Toussaint) doesn’t know his dad was the Black Panther. He’s never met him, and Nakia is remarried to a Haitian dude.”
“Then, we cut to reality, and it’s the night that everybody comes back from the Blip. You see T’Challa meet the kid for the first time.”
According to Coogler, the film would then focus on T’Challa rebuilding his relationship with his son over the course of a summer, three years after the events of Avengers: Endgame.
“Then it cuts ahead three years, and he’s essentially co-parenting,” Coogler explained.
“We had some crazy scenes in there for Chad, man. Our code name for the movie was ‘Summer Break’, and the movie was about a summer that the kid spends with his dad.
“It was going to be a father-son story from the perspective of a father, because the first movie had been a father-son story from the perspective of the sons,” Coogler added.
