Earlier this year, Ryan Coogler directed a little movie you may have heard of called Black Panther. If you’re unfamiliar with the eighteenth entry into the MCU, please, allow me to enlighten you.
Black Panther, which stars Chadwick Boseman in the titular role, earned a monstrous $202 million in its opening weekend, on the way to a ludicrous $676 million domestic haul. As a result, T’Challa’s debut is now the highest-grossing Marvel Studios movie stateside, so far, given that later this month Avengers: Infinity War is projected to obliterate the box office, but I digress.
Following T’Challa’s financial and critical success, Black Panther currently sits at 96% certified fresh on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, in case you weren’t aware. The Coogler-helmed feature continues to rack up accolades, too, becoming the most-Tweeted-about film of all-time before being tipped by Dark Knight trilogy director Christopher Nolan to be “among the Best Picture nominees” next year.
Therefore, I think it’s safe to assume that Ryan Coogler will be back for more MCU mayhem, even though the filmmaker hasn’t formally been asked to oversee Black Panther 2 yet. Don’t take my word for it, though, as during a conversation with ODE, Infinity War co-directors Anthony and Joe Russo might’ve let it slip that Coogler will indeed be part of Phase 4, saying:
“We did allow James [Gunn], Jon Watts, and Ryan Coogler to see the movie to this point. So, yes you have to be working on a film that this will be affecting your storytelling moving forward.”
While this is far from confirmation that Ryan Coogler will be returning to the MCU, the fact that he’s seen Infinity War does indicate that the Creed director will be involved in Phase 4, in some capacity. And of course, the most likely project that he’d direct is Black Panther 2.
Again, though, this hasn’t been confirmed and we don’t expect to hear anything concrete from the studio for a while. After all, they have Avengers: Infinity War to attend to first, which drops on April 27th.
