In just an amazing bit of news for a Tuesday, Disney has confirmed they’ve signed Black Panther director Ryan Coogler onto a five-year overall TV deal which will include him making a Black Panther TV series for streaming service Disney+.
According to The Wrap, the deal will see Coogler work on a bunch of projects across Disney-owned platforms Disney+, Freeform and Hulu, with the crown jewel being a Black Panther series based on the kingdom of Wakanda.
The OG film was a runaway hit for the studio and a cultural phenomenon, raking in over $1.3 billion USD at the box office to become the fifth-highest grossing Marvel movie of all time (with only the Avengers franchise ranking higher).
Sadly, the film’s star Chadwick Boseman, who played T’Challa (aka Black Panther) in the film as well as four other Marvel movies, passed away last August at the age of 43 after a private, four year-long battle with colon cancer.
It’s believed that the Wakanda TV series will focus on other characters we met in Black Panther, like Shuri (Letitia Wright), Okoye (Danai Gurira) and M’Baku (Winston Duke). Hell, just bring back the very shirtless N’Jadaka / Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) somehow. Even though he didn’t survive the original film, there must be a way!
Currently, Coogler is rewriting the script for the planned Black Panther II, after the decision was made not to recast the role of T’Challa and instead focus on a different storyline. After Boseman’s death, Coogler released a statement in which he said: “I spent the last year preparing, imagining and writing words for him to say, that we weren’t destined to see.”
While there’s no date set yet for the upcoming Black Panther TV series, we’ll keep you posted as soon as we know more. In the meantime, you can sign up to Disney+ right HERE to check out WandaVision and the upcoming Captain America and Loki shows.
