Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is already gaining high praise and coming in the wake of the critically panned Thor: Love and Thunder and mixed reviews of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness that will be a relief for Marvel Studios. The Black Panther sequel will see a shift of focus from the predominantly male-orientated first movie, to a female-focused sequel. As reported by Screen Rant, producer Nate Moore and director Ryan Coogler recently told a press conference why the female-centric story came about as a natural progression of the story. Moore said:
“It was just the right story to tell. These were the characters who were most affected by T’Challa’s passing, so we focused on the people who were appropriate. It’s not about pushing women forward or holding men back; it’s about telling the story that is organic. I think sometimes, maybe from the outside, there’s a thought that there are agendas at play. But it’s just telling good stories, and we are blessed with an amazing cast who breathes life into these characters and makes you want to see what’s happening with Shuri or what’s happening with Okoye or what’s happening with Lupita or what’s happened with Ramonda. To not highlight them would have been a disservice to the story, and so I think the movies better for it. If we would have had to wedge in some new male characters just to have that voice, that would have seemed more performative than then just telling the story we told.”
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How Does Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Deal With T’Challa’s Death?
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In a reflection of the real-life passing of Chadwick Boseman, a big part of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is how the nation of Wakanda comes to terms with the passing of their leader and where that leaves the rest of T’Challa’s family. Black Panther always had a strong female contingent, and along with an extended role for Winston Duke’s M’Baku, director Coogler explained what brought the focus into this collection of characters. He said:
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will arrive in theaters on November 11.
“I will say that M’Baku was in this movie more than he was in the first Black Panther; probably like a two-to-one ratio, and probably twice as many scenes as he got in the first one. He’s there, but Nate’s absolutely right. When you lose somebody, there’s a blast radius. It’s like a bomb that goes off, and who was the closest to it? That’s who we explored. The main characters, their identities were kind of wrapped up in this man. [That’s] the truth of it. Every day Shuri was alive, she had her brother. When she lost him, what we discovered while we were working on the script—and then eventually bringing it to life with it with the actors—was that she really lost her sense of self. She identified herself as this guy’s little sister, and as his protector, and as the person who looks out for him. When she loses that, it makes her very unmoored. …The worst nightmare that you can have is, if something were to happen to you, the people who you love and leave behind will be unmoored and lost after you’re gone. We were exploring all of those things, and it wasn’t about gender directly. It was about who would be most affected.”
