The sequel to the cultural phenomenon that was Marvel Studio’s Black Panther is set to start filming next year.
Production of the highly anticipated follow-up to the 2018 flick, that featured Chadwick Boseman as the eponymous superhero tussling with Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger to preserve the fictional Wakanda, was understandably halted after Boseman’s unexpected death this year.
Now, according to The Hollywood Reporter, plans for filming to begin next summer in Atlanta for Black Panther 2 are being finalized.
From THR:
Multiple sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Marvel is now readying Black Panther 2 for a shoot that will start in Atlanta in July and last for upwards of six months.
Mexican actor Tenoch Huerta, who was one of the stars of Netflix’s Narcos: Mexico, is in talks to play one of the antagonists, sources tell THR. Letitia Wright, Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke and Angela Bassett are expected to return for the new feature, with some saying Wright’s character may take on a more prominent role.
Marvel, which had no comment on this story, has not revealed its plans on how it plans to proceed without Boseman, although it has indicated that it will not use CGI to include the late star in the film.
Though there is still one unanswered question—who will play the next Black Panther?—the return of the talented cast of actors who made the world of Wakanda one that so many of us wish we could inhabit in real life means that Black Panther 2 will likely be as much of an event as the first.
The news that filming will soon begin is still a bit bittersweet, as a Black Panther movie without the actor we watched make the role his own will invariably remind us of the stunning early loss of Boseman, who died this summer from stage four colon cancer.
We’ll need all the movie-magic escapism we can get to recover from the year that has been 2020. Black Panther 2 is slated for release in 2022.