Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Was Originally About T’Challa And His Son Completing A Ritual

Black Panther 2 is great but what the original film would have been like with T’Challa? Ryan Coogler gives all the details

By Ishita Chatterjee
December 26,2022
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‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever‘ is minting money at the box-office. The movie gives a tribute to Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa and continues the story with Letitia Wright’s Shuri as the new Panther. However, one can’t help but wonder what the movie would have been like if Boseman had been with us. Now, Ryan Coogler has confirmed what the initial plans were for Black Panther 2.

Ryan Coogler Opens Up About First Black Panther 2 Story

Ryan Coogler
Ryan Coogler

In an interview with The New York Times, Ryan Coogler said that the original script was a father-son story between T’Challa and his son Toussaint. He also mentioned that the story would have been about the 5-year-absence of T’Challa (after Thanos wiped half the population out) during which time his son was born. Here’s his quotes on the matter:

“It was, What are we going to do about the Blip? That was the challenge. 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. In the (original) script, T’Challa was a dad who’d had this forced five-year absence from his son’s life. The first scene was an animated sequence. You hear Nakia talking to Toussaint. She says, ‘Tell me what you know about your father.'”

Coogler also says that in the original version Nakia would have remarried, so T’Challa and Nakia would have to deal with co-parenting. He says:

“You realise that he (Toussaint) 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. Then it cuts ahead three years, and he’s essentially co-parenting.”

The Black Panther 2 director also mentioned that for the eighth birthday of his kid, T’Challa was going to his son out to do a ritual:

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

The Reception Of The Actual Movie

Shuri becomes the new Black Panther
Shuri becomes the new Black Panther

While everyone would have loved to see the original version, the actual Black Panther 2 we saw in theaters is a great movie that respects Chadwick Boseman’s legacy and lets all the characters around him process his the grief of his loss. This emotional heavy-lifting coupled with a great villain in Namor, made the movie believable and a box-office hit. It’s also admirable that Coogler didn’t cut out Toussaint from the storyline just because of Boseman’s absence. As for whether Toussaint/ T’Challa will become the Black Panther some years down the line, that remains to be seen.

Stay tuned for more updates.