Black Panther 2’s Winston Duke Says Movie Is “Something Really Special”

Winston Duke has already started production on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the Marvel Studios sequel currently filming at Tyler Perry Studios in the greater Atlanta area. On a recent press tour for his latest flick Nine Days, the Black Panther star revealed just how much the movie meant to everyone. According to Duke, Wakanda Forever is turning into “something really special.”

“It was very emotional to read the script. It was emotional to pack to go back to set. But we’re all a bit of a family now and we grieve together, and we’re making something really special,” Duke told Collider while promoting Nine Days.

Duke will be returning to the franchise along with Black Panther stars Lupita Nyong’o, Martin Freeman, Angela Bassett, and Danai Gurira. It’s also expected Letitia Wright, Daniel Kaluuya, and Florence Kasumba will also return for the movie.

Earlier this year, Nyong’o broke her silence on returning to the project after the passing of Chadwick Boseman. At the time, she said she was in a “very pensive” state.

“People will ask me, ‘Are you excited to go back?’ Excitement isn’t the word. I feel like I’m in a very pensive and meditative state when it comes to Black Panther 2. His passing is still extremely raw for me,” Nyong’o told Yahoo! in a new interview. “And I can’t even begin to imagine what it will be like to step on set and not have him there… But at the same time we have a leader in Ryan, who feels very much like we do, who feels the loss in a very, very real way as well.”

She continued, “And his idea, the way which he has reshaped the second movie is so respectful of the loss we’ve all experienced as a cast and as a world. So it feels spiritually and emotionally correct to do this. And hopefully, what I do look forward to, is getting back together and honoring what he started with us and holding his light through it. Because he left us a lot of light that we’re still going to be bathing in. I know that for sure.”

Starring Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Winston Duke, Martin Freeman, Letitia Wright, and Angela Bassett, Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever opens in theaters on July 8, 2022.