Ryan Coogler Details ‘Black Panther 2’ Original Father/Son Story

Ryan Coogler shed more light on what the original Black Panther sequel would have looked like had Chadwick Boseman not passed away.

Currently, Ryan Coogler is out making the case for his film Sinners during award season, and one of those stops was the Happy Sad Confused podcast. 

During the conversation with podcast host Josh Horowitz, Coogler spoke about the original story plans for the sequel to his 2018 Oscar-winning superhero blockbuster film, which he had to scrap after Boseman tragically passed away in August 2020 from colon cancer, resulting in 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

When Horowitz asked him about the situation, Coogler revealed the original plans for the sequel involved an adventure between Boseman’s T’Challa and his 8-year-old son. 

Namor, the antihero played by Tenoch Huerta in Wakanda Forever, would still be the main antagonist in the film.

Per Variety:

“The big thing with the script was a thing called the Ritual of 8 where a prince is 8 years old, he must spend 8 days in the bush with his father,” Coogler said. “The rule is for those 8 days the prince can ask the father any question and the father must answer. In the course of those 8 days, Namor launches an attack… he had to deal with someone who’s insanely dangerous but because of this ritual, his son had to be joined at his hip the whole time or else they’d violate this ritual that had never been broken. It was insane. Chadwick was going to kill it, but life goes as it goes.”

Ryan Coogler Shares Chadwick Boseman Was “Too Sick” To Read His BP2 Script

In another sad moment, Coogler revealed that he did finish the original version of the Black Panther 2 script only to find out that his friend was “too sick” to read it.

“He was at a place where it wasn’t going to happen,” the director added. “Our relationship was very interesting. He meant a lot of me but I found out after his passing from his family and his friends about how much I meant to him. That fucked me up pretty good. I wonder if he knew how much he meant to me. I did wonder… But I loved that script. I put so much into that version of the movie because I felt like I had gotten to know Chadwick as a performer. I threw a lot at him in the first ‘Panther’ but I realized I was just scratching the surface. It was a 180-page draft.”

Coogler Wanted Kraven The Hunter For The First Black Panther Movie

While the first film gave us standout villainous performances from Andy Serkis as Klaw and Michael B. Jordan as Killmonger, Coogler revealed that he originally wanted to use Kraven the Hunter in the movie.

The director revealed Sony blocked him because the studio owns the character rights.

“[I] wanted to base it on the Christopher Priest run of ‘Panther,’ and his run starts with Panther and Kraven in the kitchen,” Coogler told Horowitz. “That’s the first thing. It’s Ross, Panther, and Kraven fighting in the kitchen.”

“I’m a big Spider-Man fan, especially ‘Spider-Man: The Animated Series.’ Kraven is in that. He’s also great in the books,” Coogler continued. “I was like, ‘Yo, can I have Kraven in the movie?’ They were like, ‘We don’t think so, but let us check.’ So, they hit Sony, and Sony was like, ‘Absolutely not.’ They came back to me like, ‘Yo, we can’t do it.’ So, I was like, ‘Okay.’”

Damn.

Well, Sony is more than likely thinking they should have done another deal with Marvel Studios as they have for Spider-Man because the 2024 Kraven the Hunter movie, directed by J.C. Chandor, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the titular character, was a box office flop, only generating $62 million worldwide.

Man, sounds like we would have gotten an epic sequel. Coogler also touches on his upcoming X-Files reboot, his love for Wakanda Forever, and working with Denzel Washington when he begins filming his third Black Panther movie, which he revealed is his next project.

You can see the entire interview and reactions to it below.