‘Black Panther’ Director on What Makes Killmonger Different From Other MCU Villains

Black Panther is set to provide fans with an entirely new glimpse at the Marvel Cinematic Universe – including a pretty multidimensional villain.

In a recent interview with Fandango, Black Panther director Ryan Coogler was asked about Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan), the film’s main villain. As Coogler put it, Killmonger falls into a unique category of MCU villains, as he feels more familiar in some sort of way.

“I will say what makes him different — not from all Marvel villains, but I think a lot of Marvel villains — is that he has a real world sensibility to him.” Coogler revealed. “I think it’s a benefit of having Mike as an actor, but he’s a character that I think will feel very familiar to audiences. I think Marvel has had villains who you can relate to, but I think even more than that, you feel like he’s of this world. He’s very grounded, I would say.”

It’s sort of a running joke amongst Marvel fans that MCU movies have a sort of “villain problem”, with many of the antagonists either forgettable or pretty hard to understand. But considering Killmonger’s prolific comic backstory, and Jordan’s legion of fans, it isn’t too hard to see how he could defy expectations.

And as it turns out, playing the part had a pretty profound role on Jordan when the cameras weren’t rolling.

“It took me to a dark place,” Jordan said last month. “Honestly, I can’t really go through all I went through to get into it because I want to keep that close to me. But it stuck with me afterwards.”

But according to one of Jordan’s co-stars, the dynamic between Killmonger and T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) will have some…somewhat familiar qualities.

“Me and T’Challa have two totally different approaches to the throne as well and you see those two opposing sides clash,” Boseman revealed last year. “So you can call it a Magneto/Professor X type of chemistry. That’s all I can give away.”

Black Panther currently has a ComicBook.com User Anticipation Rating of 4.15 out of 5, making it the third most anticipated upcoming comic book movie among ComicBook.com Users. Let us know how excited you are for Black Panther by giving the movie your own ComicBook.com User Anticipation Rating below.

Black Panther opens in theaters on February 16, 2018.

Other upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include; Avengers: Infinity War on May 4, 2018, Ant-Man and the Wasp on July 6, 2018, 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.