Wakanda Forever’s original plot line before Chadwick Boseman’s death has been revealed

Stephen Porzio

“It was absolutely nothing like what we made.”

The writers of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever have opened up about their original plans for the superhero sequel before Chadwick Boseman passed away.

Boseman, who played T’Challa aka Black Panther in a number of Marvel movies, died in August 2020 while the sequel was in development.

As Marvel chose not to recast the actor in the role, the script for the film was heavily rewritten.

The follow-up arrived in cinemas last month and began with the death of T’Challa.

In a new interview with The New York Times, the movie’s writer and director Ryan Coogler and his co-writer Joe Robert Cole spoke about their initial plans for the sequel, with Coogler stating: “We had some crazy scenes in there for Chad.”

Spoilers for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

According to Coogler, T’Challa’s son Toussaint – who only appeared in a mid-credits scene in Wakanda Forever – would have had a much larger role, featuring in large stretches of the film.

The director said the movie would have focused on T’Challa’s getting to know his son after being gone for five years, due to the “blip” event at the end of Avengers: Infinity War.

“It was absolutely nothing like what we made. 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 explained.

“The first scene was an animated sequence. You hear Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) talking to Toussaint. She says, ‘Tell me what you know about your father.’ You realise that he 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.”

The film was originally set to then jump ahead three years, at which point Nakia and T’Challa would be co-parenting.

“Our code name for the movie was ‘Summer Break’ and the movie was about a summer that the kid spends with his dad,” Coogler added.

“For his eighth birthday, they do a ritual where they go out into the bush and have to live off the land. But something happens and T’Challa has to go save the world with his son on his hip. That was the movie.”

Upon Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s release, JOE called it “one of the best Marvel movies to date” and “one of the most emotionally-resonating blockbusters of recent years”.

“Boseman’s presence can be felt throughout this movie, from the near-silent and massively emotional opening credits sequence, to narrative nods towards his character all the way through,” our review read.