Ryan Coogler Details Original ‘Black Panther 2’ Script Before Chadwick Boseman’s Death: T’Challa, His 8-Year-Old Son and a ‘180-Page Draft’ That ‘I Loved’

Ryan Coogler appeared on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast amid his ongoing awards season press tour for “Sinners” and revealed the original story plans for “Black Panther 2.” The director was well into development on the sequel to his Oscar-winning 2018 blockbuster when lead actor Chadwick Boseman died in August 2020 from colon cancer. Boseman’s tragic passing forced Coogler to completely overhaul the sequel into what would become 2022’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”

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Marvel fans wondering what Coogler originally planned for Boseman’s return finally have an answer as Coogler told “Happy Sad Confused” podcast host Josh Horowitz that his original “Black Panther 2” script focused on an adventure between Boseman’s T’Challa and the character’s 8-year-old son. Namor, played by Tenoch Huerta in “Wakanda Forever,” was still the main villain.

“The big thing with the script was a thing called the Ritual of 8 where a prince is 8 years old, he must spend 8 days in the bush with his father,” Coogler said. “The rule is for those 8 days the prince can ask the father any question and the father must answer. In the course of those 8 days, Namor launches an attack… he had to deal with someone who’s insanely dangerous but because of this ritual, his son had to be joined at his hip the whole time or else they’d violate this ritual that had never been broken. It was insane. Chadwick was going to kill it, but life goes as it goes.”

Coogler confirmed that he finished this version of the “Black Panther 2” script and reached out to Boseman to read it, but “he was too sick” to do so.

“He was at a place where it wasn’t going to happen,” the director added. “Our relationship was very interesting. He meant a lot of me but I found out after his passing from his family and his friends about how much I meant to him. That fucked me up pretty good. I wonder if he knew how much he meant to me. I did wonder… But I loved that script. I put so much into that version of the movie because I felt like I had gotten to know Chadwick as a performer. I threw a lot at him in the first ‘Panther’ but I realized I was just scratching the surface. It was a 180-page draft.”

Coogler also revealed that he originally wanted to use Kraven the Hunter in the first “Black Panther” movie, but he was blocked from doing so, as the character is owned by Sony and not Disney.

“[I] wanted to base it on the Christopher Priest run of ‘Panther,’ and his run starts with Panther and Kraven in the kitchen,” Coogler said. “That’s the first thing. It’s Ross, Panther and Kraven fighting in the kitchen.”

“I’m a big Spider-Man fan, especially ‘Spider-Man: The Animated Series.’ Kraven is in that. He’s also great in the books,” Coogler continued. “I was like, ‘Yo, can I have Kraven in the movie?’ They were like, ‘We don’t think so, but let us check.’ So, they hit Sony, and Sony was like, ‘Absolutely not.’ They came back to me like, ‘Yo, we can’t do it.’ So, I was like, ‘Okay.’”

Sony would ultimately end up making its own “Kraven the Hunter” movie with director J.C. Chandor and actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the title role, although it was a box office dud with $62 million worldwide in December 2024.

Following the critical and commercial success of “Sinners,” Coogler is now in development on a third “Black Panther” movie at Marvel Studios.

Watch his full interview on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast in the video below.