Black Panther Appreciation 2020

[Marvell2100]

100% agree, the backlash to a recasting would’ve been prominent for a few days but it’s one of those things that people would’ve come to accept by the release. #Shuriwasrobbed and #Disneydoesntcare would trend on Twitter for a few days but most of the controversy would’ve evaporated through a mixture of marketing and time. Doubly so if the actor they selected was reasonably well known and respected by audiences. But to be fair the same could be said of choosing not to recast.

The truth is no matter what most people would come to accept Disney’s choice by the time BP2 releases. The real question is how much engagement and audience retention will there be without T’Challa as the anchor? How will toy sales be impacted? Can they transition to an ensemble and have it be praised by critics? These are the profit driven concerns and a lot of that is tied to the quality of the film itself. If Coogler can put together a highly profitable, well regarded film that supports other profitable revenue streams we need to accept that there’s enough evidence the BP IP doesn’t need T’Challa. And by highly profitable I mean the film puts up a box office performance rivaling that of the first film with toy sales and other merchandise doing roughly as well.

But it's like you said, with time and a well respected actor, some of those against recasting could have possibly been won over. The movies is at least 3 years away. Plus a very good performance, while it may or may not rivaled Chadwick's could be good enough to sooth some of those fans.

Not recasting means no T'Challa. There's no way they are going to win over fans of T'Challa with a Black Panther II and no T'Challa. What is the appeal for those of us who wanted a recast? Shuri? Ramonda? Okoye? None of these characters could have been in the 1st movie and we still would have went to see it because of T'Challa.

[Marvell2100]

Yes, they will be initial backlash but after a while, if the actor embodies what the character T'Challa is then people will warm up to him.

Daniel Craig faced a huge backlash from fans when he was cast as James Bond to the point of having a website specifically dedicated to bashing him but here we are 16 years.

Good, that's the thing right there. At least you have an actor with an opportunity to win fans over. That won't happen in a BP movie without T'Challa.

[Ezyo1000]

If Marvel Studious wants to do something to honor and prolong Chadwick's legacy why not create scholarships and achievement awards in his name.

This feels like they aren't giving opportunities to other actors like they gave to Chadwick. How is that showing respect for his work? Sometimes this stuff just feels surreal.

It's like I said. They say the want to Honor Chadwick while ignoring what was he known for? Other than being a damn good person, he was a trailblazer, and Disney decided the best was to Honor a trailblazer is to completely shut down and block the trail he set for the Future generations. You don't ignore endorsements you feel will hurt the positivity of the character you are playing if you think said character will end with you.

Ironically enough, people would totally get on twitter #shuriwasrobbed hashtags yet are likely very silent and aren't posting #T'challawasrobbed

[chief12d]

But it's like you said, with time and a well respected actor, some of those against recasting could have possibly been won over. The movies is at least 3 years away. Plus a very good performance, while it may or may not rivaled Chadwick's could be good enough to sooth some of those fans.

Not recasting means no T'Challa. There's no way they are going to win over fans of T'Challa with a Black Panther II and no T'Challa. What is the appeal for those of us who wanted a recast? Shuri? Ramonda? Okoye? None of these characters could have been in the 1st movie and we still would have went to see it because of T'Challa.

Those that would've preferred a recast are still gonna watch BP2, myself and most people in this thread included. The question for Disney is will casual audiences watch it a 2nd or 3rd time? Will they buy a bunch of BP2 merch? Will they demonstrate some form of monetary or online interest that goes past just the initial ticket sale? The line that we as fans are gonna see drawn in BP2 is whether casual audiences are fans of T'Challa first or of Wakanda first. Hardcore fans aren't in the equation unfortunately, as we don't even form 5% of the potential market.

If casual audiences can accept that T'Challa is no more and and still support a Wakanda-centric film then it doesn't really matter what long-time fans want or if we even boycott the film. But that's contingent on a T'Challa-less BP2 being good and making a lot of money. If the franchise goes from a 700 billion domestic to 400/500 bil (which is still in that CM/AoU range) then I think there's a very strong argument to be made they should've recasted and kept T'Challa in the MCU. Because that shows either word of mouth wasn't quite as high as the first film or people weren't rewatching it, which T'Challa's loss would play a role in. If BP2 toys are getting pulled off the shelves early then that's probably a good hint that they're also failing on the merch front compared to the first film as well.

Like I said, casual audiences will accept anything Disney does, Disney's issue is gauging how intense their will support be. Plenty of people are gonna watch BP2 just out of pure curiosity in seeing how they handle T'Challa's death/disappearance. But outside of that, will there be enough interest on their part to take the film to that next level like they did the first film?

[Dboi654]

Those that would've preferred a recast are still gonna watch BP2, myself and most people in this thread included. The question for Disney is will casual audiences watch it a 2nd or 3rd time? Will they buy a bunch of BP2 merch? Will they demonstrate some form of monetary or online interest that goes past just the initial ticket sale? The line that we as fans are gonna see drawn in BP2 is whether casual audiences are fans of T'Challa first or of Wakanda first. Hardcore fans aren't in the equation unfortunately, as we don't even form 5% of the potential market.

If casual audiences can accept that T'Challa is no more and and still support a Wakanda-centric film then it doesn't really matter what long-time fans want or if we even boycott the film. But that's contingent on a T'Challa-less BP2 being good and making a lot of money. If the franchise goes from a 700 billion domestic to 400/500 bil (which is still in that CM/AoU range) then I think there's a very strong argument to be made they should've recasted and kept T'Challa in the MCU. Because that shows either word of mouth wasn't quite as high as the first film or people weren't rewatching it, which T'Challa's loss would play a role in. If BP2 toys are getting pulled off the shelves early then that's probably a good hint that they're also failing on the merch front compared to the first film as well.

Like I said, casual audiences will accept anything Disney does, Disney's issue is gauging how intense their will support be. Plenty of people are gonna watch BP2 just out of pure curiosity in seeing how they handle T'Challa's death/disappearance. But outside of that, will there be enough interest on their part to take the film to that next level like they did the first film?

I'm afraid I won't. I just can't

[Marvell2100]

Those that would've preferred a recast are still gonna watch BP2, myself and most people in this thread included. The question for Disney is will casual audiences watch it a 2nd or 3rd time? Will they buy a bunch of BP2 merch? Will they demonstrate some form of monetary or online interest that goes past just the initial ticket sale? The line that we as fans are gonna see drawn in BP2 is whether casual audiences are fans of T'Challa first or of Wakanda first. Hardcore fans aren't in the equation unfortunately, as we don't even form 5% of the potential market.

If casual audiences can accept that T'Challa is no more and and still support a Wakanda-centric film then it doesn't really matter what long-time fans want or if we even boycott the film. But that's contingent on a T'Challa-less BP2 being good and making a lot of money. If the franchise goes from a 700 billion domestic to 400/500 bil (which is still in that CM/AoU range) then I think there's a very strong argument to be made they should've recasted and kept T'Challa in the MCU. Because that shows either word of mouth wasn't quite as high as the first film or people weren't rewatching it, which T'Challa's loss would play a role in. If BP2 toys are getting pulled off the shelves early then that's probably a good hint that they're also failing on the merch front compared to the first film as well.

Like I said, casual audiences will accept anything Disney does, Disney's issue is gauging how intense their will support be. Plenty of people are gonna watch BP2 just out of pure curiosity in seeing how they handle T'Challa's death/disappearance. But outside of that, will there be enough interest on their part to take the film to that next level like they did the first film?

I'm not going to be watching BP 2. It may not matter to Marvel but it matters to me.

I'm not boycotting the film because that would mean I'm encouraging others to not to watch it. Only speaking for myself, I will not watch BP 2 if there is no recast for T'Challa.

[Marvell2100]

I'm afraid I won't. I just can't

I don't want marvel to think they can just dispose of a character in the manner they are doing and that it's okay.

Not for me anyway.

[chief12d]

It's like I said. They say the want to Honor Chadwick while ignoring what was he known for? Other than being a damn good person, he was a trailblazer, and Disney decided the best was to Honor a trailblazer is to completely shut down and block the trail he set for the Future generations. You don't ignore endorsements you feel will hurt the positivity of the character you are playing if you think said character will end with you.

Ironically enough, people would totally get on twitter #shuriwasrobbed hashtags yet are likely very silent and aren't posting #T'challawasrobbed

Could be a silent majority thing. Looking at Twitter you'd think that humanity was united in their condemnation of any attempted recast. Look at other major forums and in real life and you'll find a public that's a lot more divided if not leaning slightly pro-recast. The profile of someone who will retweet #Shuriwasrobbed isn't the same as someone who would hypothetically do the same for T'Challa. Most people don't care about this comic **** or the things that Twitter cares about lol.

Which is why a company should never measure public sentiments based off social media and blue check marks, as they can radically be out of lockstep with what the general audience wants or is willing to support. Look at the fool we elected president in 2016 lol. Disney may think the overwhelming majority of the public immensely supports a Shuri BP or Wakanda ensemble film. Then they may be surprised when the proportion of black people watching the film drops or realize there aren't nearly as many casual viewers watching the film a 2nd or 3rd time. Not recasting is a risky proposition and a couple hastags won't be able to save the film IF it doesn't work out the way Disney hopes. It'll in no way result in a flop, but there is the possibility it underperforms and that could partially be due to misunderstanding what your audience came to theaters for.

[Ezyo1000]

Those that would've preferred a recast are still gonna watch BP2, myself and most people in this thread included. The question for Disney is will casual audiences watch it a 2nd or 3rd time? Will they buy a bunch of BP2 merch? Will they demonstrate some form of monetary or online interest that goes past just the initial ticket sale? The line that we as fans are gonna see drawn in BP2 is whether casual audiences are fans of T'Challa first or of Wakanda first. Hardcore fans aren't in the equation unfortunately, as we don't even form 5% of the potential market.

If casual audiences can accept that T'Challa is no more and and still support a Wakanda-centric film then it doesn't really matter what long-time fans want or if we even boycott the film. But that's contingent on a T'Challa-less BP2 being good and making a lot of money. If the franchise goes from a 700 billion domestic to 400/500 bil (which is still in that CM/AoU range) then I think there's a very strong argument to be made they should've recasted and kept T'Challa in the MCU. Because that shows either word of mouth wasn't quite as high as the first film or people weren't rewatching it, which T'Challa's loss would play a role in. If BP2 toys are getting pulled off the shelves early then that's probably a good hint that they're also failing on the merch front compared to the first film as well.

Like I said, casual audiences will accept anything Disney does, Disney's issue is gauging how intense their will support be. Plenty of people are gonna watch BP2 just out of pure curiosity in seeing how they handle T'Challa's death/disappearance. But outside of that, will there be enough interest on their part to take the film to that next level like they did the first film?

I mean sales are guaranteed to be less already. They took out T'Challa. Who are little boys going to dress up as for Halloween? M'Baku? W'kabi? They probably aren't going to dress up as Shuri Okoye or Nakia. So there main seller is also gone for Merch, unless they got extremely distasteful and try to sell T'Challa toys even though he wasn't in the movie at all.

Yeah I may watch BP 2 but it will be mostly likely like rose of skywalker, ie I waited till it arrived on Disney plus. I mean they really have to do some major to get people on-board with the new direction, which seems better suited for a D+ show then a big budget movie.

Honestly I see it alot harder to rewrite a script to remove the title character than to recast. Remember what happened to blade trilogy? They didn't even remove blade just heavily removed focus from him and there movie flopped hard.. completely removing the Superpowered King who's name is on the title just seems unwise. Dude has been around in 4 1 billy + movies and was favored in all of them. Now we will see if the twitter groups out their money where their mouth is

[chief12d]

I mean sales are guaranteed to be less already. They took out T'Challa. Who are little boys going to dress up as for Halloween? M'Baku? W'kabi? They probably aren't going to dress up as Shuri Okoye or Nakia. So there main seller is also gone for Merch, unless they got extremely distasteful and try to sell T'Challa toys even though he wasn't in the movie at all.

Yeah I may watch BP 2 but it will be mostly likely like rose of skywalker, ie I waited till it arrived on Disney plus. I mean they really have to do some major to get people on-board with the new direction, which seems better suited for a D+ show then a big budget movie.

Honestly I see it alot harder to rewrite a script to remove the title character than to recast. Remember what happened to blade trilogy? They didn't even remove blade just heavily removed focus from him and there movie flopped hard.. completely removing the Superpowered King who's name is on the title just seems unwise. Dude has been around in 4 1 billy + movies and was favored in all of them. Now we will see if the twitter groups out their money where their mouth is

We'll have to see what Disney does because I think you're right that they would be unwise to completely alienate young black men (and the male demographic more generally) in BP2. If my suspicion is right, they'll massively pump up M'Baku's role and may try to redeem W'Kabi. But that almost certainly won't be enough to compensate for the loss of T'Challa so I think decreased male engagement is a given. Disney is gonna have to bank on attracting lots of black female interest and women support. Then maybe have a great male antagonist like Namor, who will likely go the Loki route of being an anti-hero.

I don't expect to watch the film more than once either but my kid's watched and liked most of the MCU films save 1 or 2 so I'll be buying lots of merch for him lol. As for the rewrites, that's my main concern. They'll be reworking large portions of the dialogue in the preproduction phase and they'll probably we changing lots of elements as they film to account for that. It's disconcerting Marvel is pushing through with this film despite the amount of work that's gonna put on Coogler and his co-writers. I'm sure they'll be doing everything they can to make it easier on them, but I can't help but feel they'd have benefited from pushing the film back, even if they didn't want to recast.

[XPac]

What care for this franchise has Marvel shown you that you think they're unwilling to cast aside the titular character as long as they put out a black product? People can pretend like there's no such thing as MCU synergy but I've seen it in every video game that Marvel has been putting it out lately and all of the advertising for the black panther franchise since Bozeman passed.
Marvel AKA Disney will synergize like they always do. And if there's no t'challa in the MCU can you can bet every other medium is sure to follow eventually. Marvel AKA Disney only cares about money not about content especially with their minority properties. The time for catious optimism died with the rushed announcement of gleefully removing the titular character from his own franchise after it was their highest grossing Solo movie.

I don't think synergy will work to that degree.

We KNOW Iron Man is dead and Steve Roger's is legit retired in the mcu. Until a reboot, they are done. But I don't feel like their presence has really lessened, and IF Tchalla were to die (and that's a big IF) I think the same would be true. Yes, synergy is a thing but outside of the movies super heroes really don't change that much. Pretty much all of them have been in the exact same place for a long long time.

[skyvolt2000]

I mean sales are guaranteed to be less already. They took out T'Challa. Who are little boys going to dress up as for Halloween? M'Baku? W'kabi? They probably aren't going to dress up as Shuri Okoye or Nakia. So there main seller is also gone for Merch, unless they got extremely distasteful and try to sell T'Challa toys even though he wasn't in the movie at all.

Honestly I see it alot harder to rewrite a script to remove the title character than to recast. Remember what happened to blade trilogy? They didn't even remove blade just heavily removed focus from him and there movie flopped hard.. completely removing the Superpowered King who's name is on the title just seems unwise. Dude has been around in 4 1 billy + movies and was favored in all of them. Now we will see if the twitter groups out their money where their mouth is

FYI Stores still have T'Challa outfits. Not all that stuff is returned. I mean I have see John Stewart Halloween costumes at Target and HOW LONG AGO WAS THAT MADE? Check the year on some of that comic book stuff in stores. It's stuff that has been stored and then dusted off. I know it was done to Batman, Justice League movie & Young Justice. One Target I went to was still selling Batman The Dark Knight Rises in 2017.

Also for Blade Trinity they were trying for a spinoff (while ticking off Snipes).

And YES they will sell T'Challa toys even if he is NOT in the movie. We have seen it done in the past in the Marvel Legends line.
What movie has Rock Python been in?

[Havok83]

What care for this franchise has Marvel shown you that you think they're unwilling to cast aside the titular character as long as they put out a black product? People can pretend like there's no such thing as MCU synergy but I've seen it in every video game that Marvel has been putting it out lately and all of the advertising for the black panther franchise since Bozeman passed.
Marvel AKA Disney will synergize like they always do. And if there's no t'challa in the MCU can you can bet every other medium is sure to follow eventually. Marvel AKA Disney only cares about money not about content especially with their minority properties. The time for catious optimism died with the rushed announcement of gleefully removing the titular character from his own franchise after it was their highest grossing Solo movie.

I think you are placing too much emphasis on that. BP aint going anywhere in the books or videogames just bc he may not be used in the next film

They didnt gleefully remove the character. WTF?!? You think they are happy about what happened? I also dont think the announcement was rushed. They had MONTHS to plan around this. This wasnt a quick decision that wasnt thought out.

[MouserGrey]

Those that would've preferred a recast are still gonna watch BP2, myself and most people in this thread included. The question for Disney is will casual audiences watch it a 2nd or 3rd time? Will they buy a bunch of BP2 merch? Will they demonstrate some form of monetary or online interest that goes past just the initial ticket sale? The line that we as fans are gonna see drawn in BP2 is whether casual audiences are fans of T'Challa first or of Wakanda first. Hardcore fans aren't in the equation unfortunately, as we don't even form 5% of the potential market.

If casual audiences can accept that T'Challa is no more and and still support a Wakanda-centric film then it doesn't really matter what long-time fans want or if we even boycott the film. But that's contingent on a T'Challa-less BP2 being good and making a lot of money. If the franchise goes from a 700 billion domestic to 400/500 bil (which is still in that CM/AoU range) then I think there's a very strong argument to be made they should've recasted and kept T'Challa in the MCU. Because that shows either word of mouth wasn't quite as high as the first film or people weren't rewatching it, which T'Challa's loss would play a role in. If BP2 toys are getting pulled off the shelves early then that's probably a good hint that they're also failing on the merch front compared to the first film as well.

Like I said, casual audiences will accept anything Disney does, Disney's issue is gauging how intense their will support be. Plenty of people are gonna watch BP2 just out of pure curiosity in seeing how they handle T'Challa's death/disappearance. But outside of that, will there be enough interest on their part to take the film to that next level like they did the first film?

Not til it runs on cable. And I dont have cable.

[chief12d]

Disney won't kill T'Challa off in the comics, they'll just do what they did with his intelligence, just on a larger scale. Ever since the first film Shuri's been pushed as Wakanda's greatest mind so we've had moments in T'Challa's appearances where tech feats that would've gone to him a decade ago are being given to Shuri. We'll be seeing a more comprehensive version in terms of how he gets used.

So right now, T'Challa is the true king of Wakanda, the "real" BP, a member of the Avengers, and has a solo comic. Expect that to be cut. They'll almost definitely put Shuri in her own BP suit and have 2 Black Panthers, then they'll split different roles between them. She might become Queen and manage the solo while T'Challa runs with the Avengers or vice versa. Maybe they turn the BP solo into a buddy cop/World of Wakanda title and relegate T'Challa to a secondary team like the Secret Avengers while Shuri is with the main team. We probably won't see this until about a year or two after the sequel drops, because it takes a while for the comics to properly synergize. That gives us another 3-4 years before we start seeing a massive reduction in T'Challa's comic prominence. I don't think T'Challa will slump into complete irrelevance, but I fully expect him to be making less appearances and getting less push than 2016-2020.