Black Panther Director Reveals Major Marvel Villain MCU Was Banned From Using in First Film

With the years behind us and billions of dollars accumulated, it’s tough to imagine a time when Black Panther wasn’t a ubiquitous cultural touchpoint. Before filmmaker Ryan Coogler and star Chadwick Boseman got their hands on the Black Panther character and his corner of the Marvel Universe, though, it was far from a proven commodity. Though that means it was ripe with potential, it’s tough for Hollywood to see what something can bring to the table before it’s had its time in the spotlight. It’s also hard to imagine anyone telling Marvel “No,” but that happened with the first Panther movie many moons ago.

Coogler, who directed the two Black Panther movies and developed the animated Eyes of Wakanda spinoff series, has spent years working on the character and his world with a variety of ideas and stories that were considered but didn’t make it to the final cut. Speaking in a new interview with the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Coogler not only confirmed that there had briefly been a time when another Marvel villain was considered for the first movie, none other than Spider-Man antagonist, Kraven the Hunter. There’s more to the story than that, though; it’s how it would have changed the movie entirely.

Read Next

10 Marvel Costumes That Are Better in the MCU

Ryan Coogler Reveals True Story of Kraven in Black Panther Movie

Speaking about the rumor mill that has been created around Kraven’s potential involvement in the first Black Panther movie, Coogler was quick to confirm that Michael B. Jordan’s role in the film was always as Erik Killmonger, one of two villains that were in the movie from before he was even involved. Coogler revealed that when he was hired by Marvel, the outline they had for the movie, inspired by the Christopher Priest comic run on Black Panther, had Klaw and Eric Killmonger as the antagonists, but there was wiggle room.

“In the outline of villains were Klaw and Kilmonger, but they weren’t sure. Klaw felt slightly modular to them, and obviously, it was the great Andy Serkis, so I’m hyped to work with him,” Coogler said. “But they wanted to base it on the Christopher Priest run of Panther, and his run starts with a fight with Panther and Kraven in the kitchen. That’s the first thing. It’s Ross, Panther, and Kraven fighting in a Kitchen.”

Coogler, a big Spider-Man fan and specifically Spider-Man: The Animated Series, noted that he had a great affection for Kraven as a potential villain, so he asked.

“I was like, ‘Yo, can I have Kraven in this movie?’ They were like, ‘We don’t think so, but let us check.’ So, they hit Sony, and Sony was like, ‘Absolutely not.’ They came back to me like, ‘Yo, we can’t do it.’ So, I was like, ‘Okay.’…But it was like a two-week process where I was developing some ideas. But i’m glad it didn’t work out because Kraven would have basically taken that Klaw spot, and I wouldn’t have been able to work with Andy. Thankfully, it was doomed from the jump.”

As Marvel fans know, it’s for the best that Kraven wasn’t allowed to appear in Black Panther, as the role that Andy Serkis’ villain played in the film gave the movie some major connectivity to the larger MCU after his initial appearance in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Furthermore, his role was to boost the positioning of Killmonger in the story, as he kills Klaw and uses it as a means to enter Wakanda and prove his birthright. It seems unlikely that the same thing would have been used with Kraven in the film, but if it had, it would have taken a major antagonist off the board that the MCU still hasn’t used. Fans naturally know that Kraven did get his own feature film from Sony Pictures, the 2024 movie starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson that marks the character’s only appearance on film.