Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Director Ryan Coogler Recalls His Last Conversation With Chadwick Boseman

Black Panther director Ryan Coogler recalled his last conversation with actor Chadwick Boseman, who died at age 43 in August 2020 after a private four-year battle with colon cancer. After 2018's Black Panther grossed more than $1.3 billion worldwide and became the first superhero film ever nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, Coogler and Boseman were to return for the Marvel Studios sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Originally scheduled for release on May 6th, 2022, it was to be Boseman's fifth film as T'Challa, the king of Wakanda, a role he had originated in Captain America: Civil War before returning in Black Panther and two Avengers sequels. 

Coogler had just finished writing his script about T'Challa grieving the loss of time from the five-year Avengers: Endgame Blip when the filmmaker had what would turn out to be his final conversation with Boseman.  

"I just finished [the script]. My last conversation with him was calling him asking him if he wanted to read it before I got notes from the studio. That was the last time we spoke," Coogler shared in the first episode of Wakanda Forever: The Official Black Panther Podcast. "He passed maybe a couple of weeks after I finished."

Asked to reveal Boseman's response, an emotional Coogler took a moment to compose himself. 

"He was tired, bro," Coogler remembered through tears. "I could tell he was tired." Both Coogler and Denzel Washington — the actor's longtime friend and producer of Boseman's final film, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom — had been trying to reach Boseman for days by the time Coogler got him on the phone. Neither knew Boseman was battling colon cancer.

He continued: "[Boseman] called me, and I could tell he was laying down when we were talking. Simone [Boseman's then-fiancée] was with him, and he kicked Simone out because he told her he didn't want her to hear nothing that could get him in trouble with an NDA [laughs]. And she didn't want to leave him. So I could tell something was up."

The couple were in good spirits and "joking and laughing," Coogler said, remembering Boseman talking about their upcoming wedding in South Carolina. 

"Then he said he didn't want to read [the script] because he didn't want to get in the way of whatever notes the studio might have. So he said he'd read it later," Coogler recalled. "But I found out later he was too tired to read anything."

It was "maybe a couple of weeks" later that Coogler learned Boseman had died. Coogler's agent and manager broke the news to him, but it wasn't until a call to Washington — and an unreturned text to Boseman — that Coogler realized the reported death of his friend and leading man wasn't a rumor or hoax.

"You know, you go through that denial. And with technology, I think it makes it kind of easier to deny things, you know? You think maybe it's a hoax, 'Let me text or call him.' So I texted him," Coogler said. "And then I told Denzel to check and see if it's a rumor. He called me back and said, 'It's not a rumor.' Then my agents called back and said that the release had just been posted. So that was how I found out."

Marvel Studios' Black Panther: Wakanda Forever opens in theaters November 11th.