Last Friday the world was rocked by the sad and surprising news that Actor Chadwick Boseman had passed away after loosing his battle with colon cancer at age 43. Reports have stated he was first diagnosed with cancer back in 2016, two years before Marvel's Black Panther movie premiered.
The general public was unaware of Boseman having cancer, even after recent images of the actor surfaced showing he had lost an alarming amount of weight. Apparently Disney and Marvel Studios didn't know he had cancer either. According to an article by
The Hollywood Reporter, Marvel's Kevin Feige wasn't told about the cancer until getting an urgent email on August 28, the day the actor passed away.
According to the THR article, Disney was totally unprepared for the actor's passing and is now scrambling to try and figure out how to proceed with the Black Panther character that Boseman almost single handily made so famous. Until about a week ago Boseman, who according to a source in the THR article was convinced he was going to beat the cancer and be able to begin work on the second Black Panther movie, which was set to go into production next March.
Most seem to agree that the two options for how Disney will proceed is to either replace Boseman with a new actor to portray King T’Challa, which many agree would be very difficult to do. Or they could make T’Challa’s sister, Shuri (Letitia Wright) the new Black Panther which is in keeping with a storyline from the comic books.
For me personally it is hard to imagine anyone in that role but Boseman himself. Because I know how important the Black Panther character is to the overall MCU, I know retiring the character completely isn't really an option for Disney. While I didn't personally know Boseman, from everything I have seen and read about him, my gut feeling is he would be most happy if Shuri (Letitia Wright) was allowed to take over the Black Panther mantle so she could become an inspiration and role-model to young girls, like his portrayal of the character did for young boys.
