Ryan Coogler Says ‘Black Panther’ Is Definitely A Political Film

Black Panther is “definitely a political film” according to its director Ryan Coogler.

There was little question of this, especially considering the cultural impact the Marvel Studios film had on a global audience upon its release. However, as the King of the fictional nation of Wakanda prepared himself for battle and properly taking his throne, Coogler always planned to have politics play a major role in the movie.

“It’s about a politician. There was no way for it to not be,” Coogler said at the Oscars Roundtable. How we always saw it, was it’s about a character who the political leader of a fictional country. It’s fictional but we wanted to put it on a real continent. We wanted to set it in the real world. That’s how the character saw himself. That’s how he identified himself. Through that, it’s definitely a political film.”

Check out Coogler’s response on video in a tweet from THR below.

Coogler’s vision for the film was always quite clear. In fact, the director was so focused on making Black Panther resonate with fans, he was not thinking ahead to sequels while crafting the standalone Marvel movie.

“It’s weird because it wasn’t a pitch as much as I got a call from Nate Moore, who produced on [Captain America: The Winter Soldier] and [Captain America: Civil War],” Coogler told Comicbook.com. “He was kind of [Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige]’s right hand on all he projects and I got a call from him. He had been shepherding the film along at the studio for a number of years now. So I got a call from him, talked to to him about what they were trying to do, trying to figure out how the studio worked because I didn’t really know how they worked intimately. I was curious.”

Although Black Panther was wiped from existence in Avengers: Infinity War, Coogler is expected to return to Marvel Studios to direct a Black Panther sequel.

Avengers: Infinity War is now available on home video. Upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, Avengers: Endgame on April 26, 2019, and Spider-Man: Far From Home on July 5, 2019.