Following the tragic death of Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman last year Marvel fans weren’t sure how his iconic superhero would be handled in future Marvel movies until Kevin Feige himself confirmed that they had elected to not recast the role. Since then, and as other controversies have arisen with the upcoming Black Panther: Wakanda Forever sequel, a call to recast the part from some Marvel fans has begun to grow. Now another voice has added their two-cents to the discussion, Chadwick Boseman’s brother Derrick Boseman, who TMZ claims that he thinks the part should be recast.
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Speaking with the outlet, though no full quotes are used and no video of him speaking is seen, Derrick Boseman reportedly said that not only should the role of T’Challa be recast for the Marvel Cinematic Universe but that Chadwick would have wanted it that way too. The outlet claims Boseman “believes his sibling would’ve wanted with this too — explaining Chadwick thought T’Challa was bigger than just himself as one guy.” Marvel has previously recast some roles in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, notably replacing Terrance Howard with Don Cheadle as James Rhodes aka War Machine but also swapping out Mark Ruffalo for Edward Norton as The Hulk and Josh Dallas for Zachary Levi as Fandral, Almost all of these instances were due to contract disputes or disinterest from the actors, so it would still be a major change for Marvel to recast this part (especially after publicly announcing that they wouldn’t do it).
“I’ll say the chances that you see T’Challa in our – I’m not hedging my bets here, I am being quite honest. You will not see T’Challa in the MCU 616 Universe. We couldn’t do it,” Marvel Studios producer Nate Moore told Ringer-Verse podcast just last month. “When [Chadwick] passed, there was a real conversation we had with [director Ryan] Coogler about what do we do, and it was a fast conversation. It wasn’t weeks, it was minutes of discussing how we move this franchise forward without this character because I think we all feel so much of T’Challa on the screen is tied to Chadwick Boseman.”
Marvel Studios’ Victoria Alonso also previously confirmed that they wouldn’t use CGI to recreate Boseman’s likeness.
“No. There’s only one Chadwick, and he’s not with us,” Alonso shared of Marvel’s future Black Panther plans. “Our king, unfortunately, has died in real life, not just in fiction, and we are taking a little time to see how we return to history and what we do to honor this chapter of what has happened to us that was so unexpected, so painful, so terrible, really.”
