'Black Panther's First Director's Cut Was Four Hours Long

Black Panther is a hit now, but the road to get on the screen is quickly becoming just as interesting as the film itself. The latest anecdote comes from the film's composer, Ludwig Goransson, who confirmed that director Ryan Coogler's original cut of Black Panther was actually four hours long!

Speaking to THR, Goransson revealed the following:

"I remember the first director's cut was four hours long, but I already had a lot of material written and recorded. So, I actually scored the four-hour cut of the film. Which is really great."

Marvel Studios movies go through revision all the time, but it sounds as though Coogler made a true Shakespearean epic with his first cut of Black Panther, which could be an interesting watch - if only once. It's not hard to imagine where the film could of had a much more expansive chapter in the middle, when the major shakeups in Wakanda took place. It's also not hard to imagine many of the supporting characters like Okoye, W'Kabi, Nakia and Shuri could have much longer scenes and sequences in the middle, when T'Challa was out of commission.

It's similarly not hard to see how T'Challa's near-death experience and/or Killmonger's plot to get to Wakanda would've been stretched out. However, while more of the surreal spiritual world elements would've been fairly trimmed, added scenes of Killmonger executing his chess-like game of sovereign infiltration and inversion would've only strengthened the film. That's probably a 20/20 hindsight revelation now that Killmonger is one of the most popular MCU villains ever, but if the material is there, we can always get more in the inevitable home release director's cut.

Did you enjoy Black Panther? Would you like to see the original longer cut (especially if it had more Killmonger)? Let us know in the comments section!

Black Panther is now in theaters. It will be followed by Avengers: Infinity War on May 4th, Ant-Man and the Wasp on July 6th, Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming on July 5, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.