Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is supposed to set up another major franchise in the mcu, this time for the character of Namor. Black Panther is one of the most popular films from Marvel Studios, becoming the thirteenth highest-grossing film in the world, with $1.3 billion. It’s also the only Marvel film to win the Best Picture Oscar. Ryan Coogler returns to direct this sequel, kept very secret.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever had a very difficult production. The tragic death of Chadwick Boseman in 2020 resulted in a complete script rewrite, forcing the film’s release date to be pushed back from May 6, 2022 to November 11, 2022. Marvel made the decision not to recast T’Challa in honor of the late actor, many rumors place shuri in pole position to regain the cape of Black Panther. Despite this, Letitia Wright, Who embodies shuri, has been subject to several controversies. Injured on the set of the film, which would resume shortly for a period of one month, the actress then showed herself to be a fervent defender of the Covid-19 antivax movement, preventing her from filming and forcing Disney to rewrite the screenplay of Black Panther 2.
Created by screenwriter Bill Evert in 1939, Namor is one of the first superheroes of the Golden Age of comics and a major character in Marvel Comics when the company was still called Timely Comics. Stan Lee brought the character back to the pages of The Fantastic Four #4 in 1962 and has since been a major player in the Marvel Universe ruling over Atlantis. He has often been both the enemy and the ally of the Fantastic Four, of Black Panther, from X-Men, of Doctor Doom and many others. Universal Pictures owns the movie rights to the character while Chris Columbus (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone) and Jonathan Mostow, (Terminator 3), are often quoted to direct the film. For years we wondered if marvel studios had recovered the rights of the character or if Universal still held them, if the rumor is true, it appears Universal’s option on the character may have expired.
marvel studios has already prepared the ground for the appearance of Atlantis and Namor in the mcu. Iron Man 2 features a SHIELD logo on a map above the ocean. Avengers: Endgame referred to an underwater earthquake, more recently the event ofEternals and the celestial Tiamut emerging from the Indian Ocean, which likely would have caused significant disruption to Atlantis. The Fantastic Four about to join the mcu, it is also a good time for the introduction of Namor on the big screen. The idea of having advanced civilizations like Atlantis and the Wakanda would certainly be a guarantee of success for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
