As anticipation ramps up for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, some fans are already looking ahead to a possible Black Panther 3. By now, Marvel Studios would have usually announced the third entry in the Wakanda franchise, but the company is keeping things more secretive with the Multiverse Saga than it did with the Infinity Saga. Of course, the Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom doesn’t care about timelines and schedules, so they want to know about Black Panther 3 right now.
Look, we all want to spend as much time in Wakanda as possible, but considering how emotional Black Panther 2 will be, can we take some time to get through its release before we start focusing on the next chapter? In an interview with Collider, Nate Moore, one of the film’s producers, explained that the team really just wants fans to enjoy the sequel first.
“We really want to see how audiences receive the film, and I think Ryan’s [Coogler] really interested to see how the film plays before we decide,” Moore said. “There are certainly ideas we’ve floated around of what a third film could be if we get to make it. But until the movie comes out, we’re a bit superstitious in that way. We don’t want to count our chickens, because you never know what’s going to happen.”
Other than the fact that it deals with the characters’ grief over the passing of King T’Challa, we don’t know anything about the plot of the movie. This means we have no idea how previous stories like the Blip or the events of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier have affected Wakanda. Unlike the Infinity Saga, Phase Four, and the Multiverse Saga as a whole, has pretty much been a guessing game, so we have no idea where the overall arc is going.
With this in mind, perhaps overexcited fans can let us sit back and enjoy the ride. We know the film will be an emotional roller coaster, but we’ve been waiting to return to Wakanda since 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War. We really don’t want to think too hard about where the characters are going, because right now we want to live in the moment. We also need all our mental capabilities focused on processing reactions to this movie, not worrying about a film that’s three or four years away.
That being said, we do know that Riri Williams will lead the Disney+ series Ironheart after she’s introduced in Wakanda Forever and back in February 2021, a series set in the fictional African nation was announced, with Coogler producing. So everyone can rest easy, even if a third movie is not currently in development, we’re definitely going back to Wakanda.
Written and directed by Ryan Coogler and starring Letitia Wright, Danai Gurira, Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Michaela Coel, Florence Kasumba, Tenoch Huerta, Martin Freeman and Angela Bassett, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever opens Nov. 11.