Marvel Studios announced today that production is underway on Black Panther, revealed the official synopsis and confirmed new cast members.
Black Panther stars Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, with Academy Award nominee Angela Bassett, with Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker, and Andy Serkis.
Boseman reprises his role as T’Challa, King of Wakanda, after his first Marvel film appearance in Captain America: Civil War. Freeman is back as Everett K. Ross. Andy Serkis played Ulysses Klaw in Avengers: Age of Ultron. This character was a smuggler/mercenary who escaped from Wakanda. In the comics Klaw is a mortal enemy of T’Challa.
Additional cast members include Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Florence Kasumba, Sterling K. Brown and John Kani.
Here’s the official description:
“Black Panther” follows T’Challa who, after the events of “Captain America: Civil War,” returns home to the isolated, technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda to take his place as King. However, when an old enemy reappears on the radar, T’Challa’s mettle as King and Black Panther is tested when he is drawn into a conflict that puts the entire fate of Wakanda and the world at risk.
Ryan Coogler is directing from a screenplay he co-wrote with Joe Robert Cole.
Coogler’s team includes frequent collaborators: director of photography Rachel Morrison, A.S.C., production designer Hannah Beachler, editors Claudia Castello and Michael P. Shawver; along with costume designer Ruth E. Carter, visuals effects supervisor Geoffrey Baumann, Academy Award- winning makeup designer Joel Harlow and seven-time Academy Award® nominee, special effects supervisor Dan Sudick who worked on “Captain America: Civil War,” “Marvel’s The Avengers”.
Here’s the big questions:
Are Captain America, Black Widow and Bucky Barnes (in hibernation) and more of Steve Rogers’s anti-registration team still in Wakanda after T’Challa gave them refuge following Captain America: Civil War?
Will Tony Stark or S.H.I.E.L.D. to turn up in Wakanda looking for Rogers and Barnes?
Will we learn more about vibranium which is what Cap’s shield is made from and what Klaw as smuggling out of Wakanda? In comics a meteor crashed in T’Challa’s homeland with the powerful metal inside.
Will one of the Infinity Stones turn up in Wakanda?
Black Panther opens February 16, 2018.
Other Marvel films include “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” (May 5, 2017), “Spider-Man: Homecoming” (July 7, 2017), “Thor: Ragnarok” (November 3, 2017) and “Avengers: Infinity War” (May 4, 2018).
While Coogler directs the Black Panther film, Ta-Nehisi Coates continues to expand the Black Panther comics franchise. After relaunching T’Challa’s solo ongoing, he co-created World of Wakanda and Black Panther: The Crew launches in April.
By Editor