Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is one of the best MCU films in the recent lackluster slate of the studio that has failed repeatedly. The superhero universe hasn’t been the same following Endgame as many of the MCU projects were outright disappointing. But it is surprising to know that director Ryan Coogler was the one who considered Black Panther 2 to be the worst movie ever on his first watch before proceeding to make some major changes.
It can be said that Ryan Coogler has a massive contribution to the success of the Black Panther sequel and the reason why the audience connected to it so much. It was due to his last-minute changes in some major scenes that saved the movie.
Why did Ryan Coogler hate Black Panther 2 on his initial watch?
Before finalizing anything in a movie, there is a long process involved in it. The filmmakers often run the movie using different materials and testing their contribution to the movie. Something similar also happened to the 2022 MCU movie when Ryan Coogler couldn’t withstand some of the experiments he conducted with few scenes.
The Dora Milaje opening scene at the start of the movie and Queen Ramonda’s speech at the United Nations were two of the amazing scenes from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Angela Bassett’s performance during the scene of the speech was iconic and the fans couldn’t stop praising it. But according to Coogler, in the audio commentary of the movie (via MovieWeb), those two scenes were cut from the first draft of the movie that he watched and it was just “worst” for him.
“And at one point, we experimented with taking these two scenes out of the movie, like [the U.N. scene and the opening Dora Milaje action scene] here. And we were just talking like, ‘Yeah, it’ll work without it’, cause X, Y, and, Z … And I remember I came in early at 6am to watch, because I just wanted to watch it down before we tested it with the scenes out. And we pressed play on it, and I was watching it, and it was just the worst movie ever, you know what I’m saying?”
It led to the Creed director re-considering the decisions taken and he immediately called Nate Moore to explain the seriousness of the situation. “I‘m just calling on my phone, calling Nate [Moore], I’m calling everybody like, ‘Yo, this is a mistake. We gotta fix this.'” When the movie was finally released, the two scenes, especially the one involving Queen Ramonda’s speech were immensely praised by the viewers. The movie also went on to collect a massive $859 million.
Black Panther 2 wasn’t the same after Chadwick Boseman passed away
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a story of grief and a beautiful tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman who passed away due to colon cancer in 2020. He was one of the main reasons why the first movie was so successful critically and commercially. He was set to fight Namor the Submariner in the sequel.
It was quite a tough job for Ryan Coogler and the team to implement so many changes after our beloved King T’Challa passed away. The whole cast and crew were already grieving over the loss when they were tasked with the heavy job of pulling this off without him. But in no way, Marvel Studios was up for a recast or CGI replacement.
The movie faced a great thematic makeover as it focused on a nation mourning for its late ruler. Even though some other scenes were cut from the movie due to certain reasons, the mid-credit scene of the movie was kept the same except for thematic changes. But it can’t be denied that the introduction of King T’Challa and Nakia’s son has impacted the story more.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever can be streamed on Disney+.
Source: MovieWeb
