Marvel Producer Comments On T'Challa Recasting Rumors For Black Panther 3

2022's "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" seemed to bring the story of T'Challa, as played by Chadwick Boseman, to a definitive close, sending off the original cinematic Black Panther with a fond farewell due to Boseman's untimely death in August of 2020. However, while death is final in the real world, it's seemingly only a temporary state of being in genre fiction. That's especially true in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as demonstrated by the numerous resurrections in "Avengers: Endgame" alone. That's without mentioning the aspect of recasting — when Terrence Howard left the "Iron Man" series after the first film, it seemed like the character of James Rhodes might be in jeopardy, but Don Cheadle stepped in and the character lived on. It's in a similar spirit that Harrison Ford is helping the tale of Thaddeus Ross to continue in "Captain America: Brave New World," taking over the role from the late William Hurt, who passed in 2022.

Due to this posthumous passing of the character torch, there have been some rumors circulating online that the upcoming third "Black Panther" film could pull a similar move and reveal T'Challa to still be alive, and played by a new actor. As of right now, those rumors are just that, as ComicBook confirmed by speaking directly to Nate Moore, a former Marvel Studios executive who has left the company, but will remain on board as a producer of "Black Panther 3." While Moore's statement on the topic was fairly direct, it does leave a little wiggle room for things to change or develop between now and when "Black Panther 3" is made. Hopefully this is just generic ambiguity, because a recast T'Challa is a very different thing then a recast version of Rhodey or Ross.

In his statement to ComicBook, Moore seemed to quell the rumors of T'Challa being recast, but also essentially moved the goalposts for any concrete, definitive answers about "Black Panther 3" to a nebulous later date:

"The truth is, there's no truth to those rumors. Never say never to anything, we haven't really had a lot of creative conversations with Ryan Coogler yet, because he's finishing his film 'Sinners,' which comes out this year. We'll get into it later this year, but everything you read online is not true, if for no other reason than we just haven't started [working on it]."

To decode Moore's answer: The rumors aren't true only for the fact that nothing has been decided about the film as of now. Notice how he did add a "never say never," which is almost a prerequisite when discussing a film in a stage so early it hasn't been shaped yet. This could also be seen as leaving a little wiggle room for "Black Panther 3" to feature a recast T'Challa, while simultaneously dispelling the rumor that anything has been decided at this point in time.

While, in theory, a recast T'Challa wouldn't be any more or less disrespectful to Boseman's memory than any average recasting would, in this particular instance it feels like the opportunity to do so has passed. As I said earlier, the entirety of "Wakanda Forever" is essentially a feature-length eulogy for the actor and the character, meaning the two have become all but inextricable at this point. Fortunately, it feels like Coogler would never go this route because of all of this, so while the door of possible recasting hasn't been sealed shut, we probably shouldn't worry, either.

Besides, Moore is quick to point out that the various elements currently at play within the MCU contain more than enough possibility and drama for the remaining cast of characters in "Black Panther" to handle, never mind who ends up taking on the Black Panther mantle. As Moore explained, the events of "Brave New World" leave some intriguing problems for the nation of Wakanda to face going forward:

"I'm sure Wakanda will have an opinion about the arrival of adamantium. And I'm sure Wakanda had an opinion on Sam Wilson as Captain America. Clearly, they seem to support him, as they've given him some technology to help him out. But Wakanda isn't in the best graces with the U.S. government, so there's a possibility for conflict in a lot of different ways. I think Wakanda, to me, gets to play in the same political thriller sandbox as Captain America because it does deal with globalization and global politics, so anything is possible."

From these comments, it seems that a third "Black Panther" might be continuing the move into the global, political spaces of the MCU that "Wakanda Forever" expanded upon. That's not even taking into account the possibilities left by that film for where its characters could go, including and especially the secret son of Nakia (Lupita Nyong'o) and T'Challa named Toussaint, whose name in Wakanda is also ... T'Challa. Could that name merely be a tribute to his father, or does it perhaps point the way toward a new T'Challa taking the reins of the Black Panther? In any case, there are a lot of moving parts happening in Wakanda right now (including the involvement of no less than Denzel Washington!), and a resurrected and recast T'Challa would only add needless confusion and complication, not to mention potential insult. Sometimes it's better to leave the past behind, especially when the future has so much possibility to look forward to.