Black Panther: Wakanda Forever started up production at Atlanta’s Pinewood Studios on Tuesday, Varietyreports, citing Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige.
“It’s clearly very emotional without Chad,” Feige said on Tuesday, referencing the loss of Chadwick Boseman in 2020, per Variety. “But everyone is also very excited to bring the world of Wakanda back to the public and back to the fans. We’re going to do it in a way that would make Chad proud.”
Boseman’s T’Challa will not be recast in the upcoming film.
Not much is currently known about the sequel to 2018’s massively successfully Black Panther as plot details have not been revealed but Feige reportedly said that people from the original cast will return.
Lupita Nyong’o previously spoke to Yahoo! Entertainment about the loss of Boseman and how director and screenwriter Ryan Coogler “reshaped” the sequel.
“People will ask me, ‘Are you excited to go back?’ Excitement isn’t the word,” Nyong’o said earlier this year. “I feel like I’m in a very pensive and meditative state when it comes to Black Panther 2. His passing is still extremely raw for me. And I can’t even begin to imagine what it will be like to step on set and not have him there.”
Nyong’o continued, “But, at the same time we have a leader in Ryan, who feels very much like we do, who feels the loss in a very, very real way as well. And his idea, the way in which he has reshaped the second movie is so respectful of the loss we’ve all experienced as a cast and as a world. So it feels spiritually and emotionally correct to do this.”
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is scheduled to be released next year on July 8, 2022.
In other news, it was revealed back in May that Danai Gurira will be reprising her Black Panther role in a spinoff series that will land on Disney+.
