Black Panther-franchisen og hele MCU måtte ændre kurs, da Chadwick Boseman tragisk døde i august 2020. Skuespilleren var kun 43 år gammel, og selvom Marvel vidste, at de aldrig ville kunne erstatte ham som T'Challa, forsøgte de at videreføre Black Panthers arv i Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Ryan Coogler, instruktøren af begge Black Panther-film, talte for nylig om, hvor anderledes hans oprindelige udkast til efterfølgeren var. I et nyligt interview med Josh Horowitz i et afsnit af Happy Sad Confused, afslørede Coogler et plot, der drejer sig om et wakandisk ritual kaldet "Ritual of Eight".
"The big thing about the script was a thing called the Ritual of 8 where, [when] a prince is 8 years old, he has to go spend 8 days in the bush with his father," sagde Coogler. </em> Coogler said. "The rule is for those 8 days the prince can ask the father any question and the father has to answer. During the course of those 8 days, Namor launches an attack ... and it was a different version of Namor in that script, but he had to deal with someone who's insanely dangerous, but because of this ritual, his son had to be joined at his hip the whole time ... or else they'd have to violate this ritual that had never been broken. It was insane, and Chadwick was going to kill it, but life goes as it goes."
<social>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0txrwxpGjw</social>
"I loved that script. I put so much into that version of the movie because I felt like I had gotten to know Chadwick as a performer," sagde Coogler om det 180 sider lange originale udkast. "I threw a lot at Chad in the first Panther, but I realized I was just scratching the surface."
Det virker meget usandsynligt, at vi nogensinde får lov til at læse det manuskript eller se denne historie, men Coogler gjorde stadig sit bedste med Black Panthers efterfølger Wakanda Forever. Vi må se, hvordan han håndterer sin tilbagevenden til Wakanda i den kommende tredje Black Panther-film.