Black Panther director Ryan Coogler was ready to ‘walk away from the business’ entirely after the tragic death of his star and friend Chadwick Boseman, at age 43, in 2020.
‘It was at a point when I was like, “I’m walking away from this business,”‘ the 36-year-old Oscar-nominated producer admitted to on Monday.
‘I didn’t know if I could make another movie period, [let alone] another Black Panther movie, because it hurt a lot. I was like, “Man, how could I open myself up to feeling like this again?”‘
‘It was at a point when I was like, “I’m walking away from this business”‘: Black Panther director Ryan Coogler (L) was ready to quit after the tragic death of his star and friend Chadwick Boseman (R), at age 43, in 2020
The 36-year-old Oscar-nominated producer (pictured September 10) admitted to EW on Monday: ‘I didn’t know if I could make another movie period, [let alone] another Black Panther movie, because it hurt a lot. I was like, “Man, how could I open myself up to feeling like this again?”‘
The South Carolina native never told Ryan nor Marvel Studios executives about his secret four-year battle with stage III colon cancer.
‘I was poring over a lot of our conversations that we had, towards what I realized was the end of his life,’ Coogler recalled.
‘I decided that it made more sense to keep going.’
The new trailer for Wakanda Forever — hitting US/UK theaters November 11 — appeared to confirm that King T’Challa’s sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) will become the new Black Panther.