Marvel has no plans to crown a new T’Challa in Black Panther 3, producer says
Producer Nate Moore eased fans concern by denying rumors that Chadwick Boseman's role of T'Challa would be recast in Black Panther 3.
Marvel won't be feeding a heart-shaped herb to a new T'Challa soon. According to a new interview on ComicBook, outgoing Marvel exec Nate Moore, who is staying aboard Black Panther 3 as a producer, claims there is "no truth to the rumors" that the studio is hunting for a new T'Challa to replace the late Chadwick Bosman. Following Boseman's death in 2020, the character was killed off in the MCU, ensuring T'Challa would not be used in the current run of films. At least, that was the assumption coming out of the first sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which opens with T'Challah's funeral and hands Black Panther duties to Shuri, played by Letitia Wright. Currently, though, there are no plans to replace him simply because the filmmakers have yet to start working on Black Panther 3.
"The truth is, there's no truth to those rumors. Never say never to anything; we haven't really had a lot of creative conversations with Ryan Coogler yet, because he's finishing his film Sinners, which comes out this year," Nate Moore said. "We'll get into it later this year, but everything you read online is not true, if for no other reason than we just haven't started [working on it]."
Boseman's death significantly affected the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the best-laid plans of Mouse and Marvel. Aside from the emotional toll it took on his friends, fans, and colleagues, T'Challa was one of the most popular characters introduced into the MCU of the last decade. However, by opening with T'Challah's funeral in Wakanda Forever, director Ryan Coogler ended the character's tenure within the universe. That said, it's not as if the MCU hadn't replaced actors before—though Don Cheadle's taking over for Terrance Howard and Mark Ruffalo taking Hulk from Ed Norton occurred well before the MCU became the multimedia behemoth it is today. Additionally, characters characters often return from the dead in Marvel Comics. One assumes the filmmakers could go into another Multiverse and pull out a different T'Challa. So it isn't outside the realm of possibility that a new T'Challah makes his way to the universe, but it would be a much bigger ask of the audience than any the studio has attempted before. Previously, Coogler said, "For somebody else to be him, for us in the world that we created, we wouldn't have believed it. No matter how good the actor was, it would've been lacking the necessary truth for us to do a good job […] Our truth was lost, which is a fact of life. It's the gift and the curse of life. Heroes, great men, die."
