Kevin Feige and Marvel have outright denied the truth of this rumor, but I don’t really care. Not out of spite or anything, but rather because the measured revelation of truth is how they play the game. Marvel’s main playing tool is misdirection, and I’m okay with that.
That doesn’t mean I have to believe what they say. But when El Mayimbe over at Latino Review, who has been plenty right before, breaks the news that he has four seperate sources who have confirmed one of Marvel’s unnanounced movies to be BLACK PANTHER? That I believe. And it makes complete sense for two reasons:
1) Black Panther’s involvement has been foreshadowed by the obvious featuring of his home country of Wakanda on a map in IRON MAN 2 and the fact that Cap’s shield in THE AVENGERS is made of Vibranium, the rarest metal in the world and one that happens to exist only in Wakanda. And 2) it would be the single best business decision Marvel could make. Not only is Black Panther a cool f***ing character in general, but his presence would allow Marvel to both market and give a strong positive representation to an audience that heretofore has been vastly underrepresented in superhero movies. And then there’s the fact that a Mark Baily was hired to write a script back in January, one that is supposedly pretty great.
My vote, if we’re picking from established actors, goes to Idris Elba in a heartbeat.
Edit: somehow I blanked that Idris Elba is already part of Thor’s universe. That really bums me out… he would have been the perfect Black Panther.
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