In the solo Black Panther movie, the nation of Wakanda will face threats from outside and within, picking up the threads left hanging in Captain America: Civil War which may include forces coming after the re-frozen Bucky Barnes. It is the defiant attitude of newly-crowned King T’Challa that has led actor Chadwick Boseman to characterize him as something a little more complex than a run-of-the-mill superhero.
“This is an anti-hero, sort of,” Boseman told EW. “I feel like although he is a superhero, he is a super anti-hero.”
That means that T’Challa/Black Panther will have no compunction about taking the law into his own hands in order to do right by his people. Just the mere act of harboring Captain America and Bucky at the tail end of Civil War shows that defiance, as did his final line, “Let them come.” With the most technologically-advanced country in the MCU at his disposal, that line could carry a lot of weight.
Chadwick Boseman will star as the title hero in Black Panther and he’s joined by Michael B. Jordan (Creed, Fruitvale Station), who will play Erik Killmonger (a villain in the source material), Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years A Slave, Star Wars: The Force Awakens) as Nakia (a former member of Wakanda’s Dora Milaje, now an agent of Killmonger), and Danai Gurira (The Walking Dead) as Okoye (a member of the Dora Milaje, the wives-in-training for the King of Wakanda).
With a script by Joe Robert Cole and Ryan Coogler, the latter will direct the film which begins shooting in January in Atlanta, Georgia. Black Panther debuts in theaters on February 16, 2018.
