Everyone knows – or at least assumes – that putting a Marvel movie together takes a lot of work. This is especially difficult if you are a newcomer tasked with introducing a whole new world to an audience that comes into movie theaters with sky-high expectations. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever director and screenwriter Ryan Coogler knows all about it, and in a recent interview with The Official Black Panther Podcast, he talked about the pressure he felt when bringing 2018's Black Panther to life.
During the interview – which was conducted by the Black Panther comic book writer Ta-Nehisi Coates – Coogler talked about the overwhelming feeling of doing justice to such an iconic character, paired with the notion that the movie had to make an impression in order for the franchise to keep existing within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This means that, as a director, he had to deliver 100% in every scene. Needless to say, he did it. But it cost some anxiety:
“‘Black Panther’ at that point was the craziest thing I had ever done professionally. And, at times it felt like I wasn’t going to survive, that I wasn’t going to do it. Because it was so hard and so intense, and different from things I had done before. […] There was no ‘Black Panther’ before it. There were other Marvel movies, and everything that they’d made before worked really well. I think before us there was ‘Spider-Man [Homecoming]’, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy 2’, ‘Thor: Ragnarok’, you know, these movies were really, really working. So there was a lot of pressure. Strangely, Chad[wick Boseman] was always very confident. Chad always knew what we had. […] He was always kind of like ahead of things, and had a lot of clarity, but I was a mess! […] When [the movie] came out and it worked as a piece of business and it worked as a piece of art, and once we realized that ‘oh, ok, we kind of did what we set out to do’, it was like a big breath… that was cool. […] But it wasn’t like we weren’t trying to do our best. Every day we were trying to knock it out of the park.”
Black Panther and Wakanda Forever Legacy To Be Celebrated By Key Players
All the pressure and anxiety paid off: Black Panther grossed over $1.3 billion worldwide, was one of the highest-grossing movies of 2018, and it set up T’Challa as one of the flagship characters of the Marvel universe. The sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, is highly anticipated not only because fans want to know the fate of its title character, but also because the movie stands out among blockbusters with its distinct soundtrack, breathtaking costume and production design, and ambitious world building.
The Official Black Panther Podcast is a show that anticipates the release of the new Marvel movie and celebrates its legacy with interviews from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s key players, including Angela Bassett, Marvel mega-producer Kevin Feige, composer Ludwig Göransson, producer Nate Moore, and Marvel newcomer Dominique Thorne, who plays Riri Williams/Ironheart in the movie.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever premieres in theaters on November 11. You can watch the latest trailer below: