The first trailer for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” was released Saturday at San Diego Comic-Con, offering fans an early glimpse into what’s in store for the futuristic African kingdom and its people following the death of T’Challa, played by Chadwick Boseman who died from colon cancer in 2020.
The two-minute trailer opens with Lupita Nyong’o’s character Nakia gazing out at the ocean, followed by slow-motion cutscenes displaying Angela Bassett’s Queen Ramonda, Letitia Wright’s Shuri, and more of the film’s main characters surrounded by lush, high-tech landscapes and fellow Wakandans clad in traditional dress. The scenes are backed by a rendition of Bob Marley’s “No Woman No Cry.”
According to Variety, a gathering of Wakandans shown in white clothing appears to be a funeral for the late Boseman’s character T’Challa, whose death leaves vacant the honorable title of Black Panther, a mantle that is sure to be hotly contested in the upcoming sequel.
Ryan Coogler, who wrote and directed the initial “Black Panther” film that took the world by storm in 2018, said to the crowd at Comic-Con that recreating the magic of the first movie without Boseman is no easy task.
“It’s going to be hard to follow that up, but we’ll try,” Coogler said. “It’s been five years since I was here. I sat about there and we premiered the first footage from Black Panther 1, and sitting next to me was our T’Challa, the late great Chadwick Boseman.”
Coogler shared that in the franchise’s new installment, the story will explore “new places in Wakanda that we haven’t seen before and it goes to new places in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”
Wright, Nyong’o and Bassett will star in the sequel alongside returning cast members Martin Freeman, Danai Gurira, Winston Duke and Florence Kasumba. Newcomers Michaela Coel, Dominique Thorne, and Tenoch Huerta will also be featured in the sequel, per iMDb.
“It’s a blessing,” Wright said about the sequel while speaking to the crowd at Comic-Con on Saturday. “We’ve all grown so much as a family, and it feels great to see you guys and honor big bro at the same time.”
Shuri, played by Wright, is the younger sister of T’Challa in the Black Panther storyline, and will take on a more central role in the newest film.
In May, Wright told Variety that the entire cast was greatly affected by Boseman’s death and strove to honor him by “committing ourselves to the story that he started, the legacy that he started with this franchise.”
“… We just committed every day to working hard, no matter what circumstances we faced — and we faced a lot of circumstances, a lot of difficult situations — but we came together as a team, and we poured everything into this movie, so I’m excited for you to see it,” she added.
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” will hit theaters in the U.S. on Nov. 11.
Story Credit: thegrio Staff
Photo Credit: Marvel.com
