Marvel Studios is about to release its biggest movie ever,Avengers: Infinity War, but few could have predicted it would be opening a few months after the studio’sliteralbiggest movie ever at the box office.Black Pantheropened in February to a monstrous opening weekend, but then it kept going and going and going. Bolstered by strong reviews and immensely positive audience response,Black Pantheris now Marvel’s highest-grossing domestic release ever with a box office total of $681 million, and worldwide it’s only $70 million away from eclipsingAvengers: Age of Ultronto secure the #2 spot behindMarvel’s The Avengers.
So the question here is not if Marvel will makeBlack Panther 2, but when. Much of the success ofBlack Panther, creatively, is owed to co-writer and directorRyan Coogler, who brought an incredibly strong and clear vision to the film with great thematic weight.
When Collider’s own Steve Weintraub recently spoke with Marvel Studios presidentKevin Feigeat the press day forAvengers: Infinity War, he asked if Coogler will definitely be back forBlack Panther 2, and while it’s not a done deal it sounds very, very good:
“We definitely want Ryan to come back and that’s actively being worked out right now. When will it be? A lot of it will be when Ryan wants to and not rushing anything, but I think we have an idea of when it will be. But, again, [we’re] not going to announce any post-Avengers 4movies until hopefully afterAvengers 4, which is another reason we’re not going to Comic-Con.”
So understandably so, it sounds like Marvel is doing everything in its power to get Coogler back in the director’s chair—even if that means waiting a couple years for Coogler to complete a different project before moving forward onBlack Panther 2. This is definitely not the norm, as sequels likeThor: The Dark WorldandCaptain America: The Winter Soldierwere on Marvel’s schedule regardless of who was directing. But withBlack Panther, they know Coogler is vital to that franchise’s success, so if they have to wait three or four years for the sequel to come out while Coogler directs a smaller movie in between, they’d rather do that than replace him and get a subpar follow-up.
As for the success ofBlack Pantheritself, Steve asked Feige if the wildly positive response altered any of Marvel’s plans. It turns out they were hedging their bets in the other direction, as Feige says their plans would have changed ifBlack Pantherhadnotbeen received so warmly:
“The success ofPantheris so amazing and makes us happy for so many reasons, and it certainly exceeded our lofty expectations. But our expectations were always lofty, so we had built a plan, not the least of which was centering so much ofInfinity Warin those locations and with some of those characters, that [its success] just says, ‘Let’s stick to this plan.’ It would have bee much more disruptive if it had not worked. Then we would have had to change a lot of what we were thinking about, but it really just solidifies and excites us to continue to move forward in the directions we’re heading in.”
If those directions don’t include a Shuri/Okoye/Nakia spinoff I will be disappointed.
Look for much more from our Feige interview on Collider soon, peruse links to our recent Marvel content below.
