Black Panther is about to reach cinemas worldwide and is receiving rave reviews. That’s a good thing, too, as fans have been waiting for this movie for a long time. Both in terms of having an MCU film with a black lead and largely black cast and the chance to see the awesome, and historically underrated, character on the big screen.
While discussing the project with Variety, Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige was asked just why it’s taken so long for Black Panther to materialize. The producer didn’t have an exact reason, but suggested that the studio was simply too busy setting up franchises based around the core members of the Avengers, that is until they were able to find a spot for Black Panther in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War.
“I don’t know. This is the 10-year anniversary of Marvel Studios, starting with Iron Man. I’ll speak starting in 2008. For us, we were building the Avengers. That took up the first five years. And as audiences continued to come, we got to tell more of these stories and we got to a point where we were developing Captain America: Civil War.”
As for why King T’Challa of Wakanda was included in that movie, Feige explained that it was purely because of the story, as the film needed a new hero to come in and have no prior attachment to either Team Cap or Team Iron Man. From there, they found the right actor in Chadwick Boseman and the right director in Ryan Coogler to spin the character off into his own solo movie.
“We had an opportunity to introduce a character that had no allegiance to either Iron Man or Captain America and that clearly was Black Panther, who has his own agenda, agency, country, and culture. And he found himself thrust into the world of the Avengers.
That became, for us, lighting the wick on the beginning of bringing Panther to the world and casting Chadwick and soon after that, hiring Ryan Coogler. I’m very glad this movie wasn’t made in 1992 because Ryan Coogler might not have been born.”
Feige’s last comment refers to the initial plan to produce a Black Panther film back in 1992. Blade star Wesley Snipes has been talking about the project recently, as he campaigned at the time to nab the leading role. Unfortunately for him, though, things never came together as they couldn’t find the right creative team.
While it would have been interesting to have a 90s Black Panther starring Snipes, or even an earlier version of this film in either Phase One or Two of the MCU, things clearly turned out for the best. Now, we have a hugely successful movie that’s already being talked about as the beginning of a burgeoning sub-franchise within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Black Panther arrives in US theaters on February 16th.
