The sequel to the box office smash ‘Black Panther’ is set to begin shooting in Atlanta, Georgia in July 2021.
The film has been sidelined due to the sudden and unexpected death of star Chadwick Boseman, who held the titular role.
Initially, Marvel had planned to begin production in March 2021.
Director Ryan Coogler will return to helm the feature with Letitia Wright, Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke and Angela Bassett, who are all expected to reprise their roles.
Mexican actor Tenoch Huerta, who was one of the stars of Netflix’s ‘Narcos: Mexico’, is in talks to play one of the antagonists, according to sources.
The expectation is that Wright, who played Boseman’s younger sister Shuri, will take a more prominent role in the feature and possibly take up the mantle of the Black Panther.
Disney, which owns Marvel, has already indicated that it will not use CGI to include the late Boseman in the film. Last week, Marvel released a statement paying tribute to Boseman, who played King T’Challa in the 2018 film, adding that there were no plans to use digital technology to have film in the new film.
Marvel Studios executive vice president, Victoria Alonso told Clarin: “There’s only one Chadwick, and he’s not with us,” Alonso said. “Our king, unfortunately, has died in real life, not just in fiction, and we are taking a little time to see how we return to history and what we do to honor this chapter of what has happened to us that was so unexpected, so painful, so terrible, really.”
She added: “Because Chadwick was not only a wonder…but it also seems to me that as a character what he did elevated us as a company, and has left his moment in history. I know that sometimes two months go by or three months go by in production and one says, already, it was a long time.
“But it is not a long time, we have to think carefully about what we are going to do, and how, and think about how we are going to honor the franchise.”
Marvel’s Phase Four is well on its way, with Black Widow, Shang-Chi and Eternals ready for their 2021 debuts, the next Tom Holland Spider-Man movie currently shooting and Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder expected to start rolling its cameras at the top of 2021.