Ryan Coogler, the co-writer and director of Black Panther, has reflected on the moment his “heart broke” following Chadwick Boseman’s death.
The 38-year-old, who is the highest-grossing Black filmmaker of all time, directed Boseman as King T’Challa in his 2018 Marvel blockbuster that saw the actor inspire audiences around the world.
Boseman, who first appeared as King T’Challa in the 2016 film Captain America: Civil War, died of colon cancer in 2020, aged 43. He last played the role on screen in Avengers: Endgame in 2019.
Speaking to The Guardian, Coogler said working on Black Panther sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, following Boseman’s death was a time of “complicated grief”.
“Sometimes, it’s actually a relief having something to do, so you can’t sit in that terrible feeling,” Coogler said of his mixed emotions while working on the project.
“After we put the movie out, my heart broke almost even more, because I realised all the work had been distracting me from the fact that Chad’s not going to make any more movies,” he added.
After news of Boseman’s death broke, Coogler and his co-screenwriter Joe Robert Cole had to rework the script for the Black Panther sequel as they opted not to recast his role.
The film immediately addressed Boseman’s death with an emotional scene showing his character’s sister Shuri (Wright) trying to cure her brother, who we learn is dying from an unspecified illness off-screen.
The end of the opening sequence saw Shuri crying as she learned T’Challa had died, before Marvel’s opening logo, typically featuring characters from across other MCU titles, appeared on screen with a tribute to Boseman.
Speaking to Variety about changing the script following Boseman’s death, Coogler said: “Where we started was this idea of who would be the most affected by his loss.
“Shuri had never known a day without him. He’d always been there, so she would be the most unmoored by him passing away,” he added.
Elsewhere in The Guardian interview, Coogler addressed rumours that there’s a spin-off miniseries in the works, saying he hoped that was the case. “I love all those guys over there,” he added.
It comes after Denzel Washington seemingly let slip that Coogler has written him a role in Black Panther 3 at the end of last year, citing the filmmaker as one of the few directors he still wants to work with.
Ahead of his death in 2020, Boseman declared Washington the reason he got the role as King T’Challa in Coogler’s Marvel film – as the star paid for him to go to acting school.
Speaking at an AFI Life Achievement Award ceremony for Washington in 2019, Boseman said: “There is no Black Panther without Denzel Washington.”
“My whole cast stands on your shoulders,” he continued. “The daily battles won, the thousand territories gained, the many sacrifices you made for the culture on film sets through your career, the things you refused to compromise along the way lay the blueprints for us to follow.”
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