“You’re telling me that the king of a third world country runs around in a bulletproof catsuit?”
Yes, Black Panther may belong to T’Challa, the honorable king of Wakanda, but Ryan Coogler’s imminent standalone pic would be nothing without its ensemble cast.
With Chadwick Boseman’s hero at its core, Marvel Studios has fleshed out the movie’s lineup in spectacular fashion, beginning with Angela Bassett as T’Challa’s mother, Ramonda, Forest Whitaker (Star Wars) as his trusted advisor Zuri, and Letitia Wright as his whip-smart little sister, Shuri.
That’s something that executive producer Nate Moore addressed during a recent roundtable interview (h/t Screen Rant), all the while revealing his desire to “cross-pollinate” the likes of Shuri and Okoye (Danai Gurira) with other entries in the MCU.
We’ve always tried to find room for faces that look like everybody and not just homogenous casting. Panther obviously is a big swing that we hope to continue through many sequels and take some of these characters and put them in other franchises because I do think there’s a way to cross-pollinate in an interesting way.
But Moore wants to exercise caution when it comes to juggling Marvel’s character roster, and admitted to Screen Rant that lessons were learned after they dropped the ball on the Ancient One (Doctor Strange).
But it’s also finding new heroes and new stories that allow us to do that organically. Looking at casting as a way to find the best actor regardless of race or gender frankly. Sometimes we step in it a little bit. I think the Ancient One in Doctor Strange was a bit of a lesson for us. In trying to avoid a stereotype we created an issue that we completely understood in hindsight.
But we want to tell stories for everybody. I always point to the Fast and Furious franchise as sort of the standard bearer for casting a film that travels everywhere because somebody is represented no matter where you go. I think that’s really valuable. I think it does something culturally that it’s hard to put a finger on but that really pays off.
It’s said to be a superhero movie unlike any other, and with the official review embargo set to lift on February 6th, it won’t be too long before we’re able to gauge Black Panther for ourselves. Oh, and did we mention it’ll herald a brand new peek at Deadpool 2?
