This year Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the superhero’s second movie, is coming to theaters. Unfortunately, this will surely be the last Marvel movie with Chadwick Boseman due to his unexpected passing on August 28th of 2020. This leaves Marvel in a difficult position since they had so much planned for Black Panther. This begs the question, should Marvel recast Black Panther or leave the character behind out of respect for Chadwick Boseman?

Recasting a character may be a foreign idea to some, especially in such a short time frame, but it wouldn’t be the first time Marvel has done this. In Iron Man, Marvel casted Terrance Howard to play Tony Stark’s best friend James Rhodes. In the follow-up film, Iron Man 2, James Rhodes was recast and replaced by Don Cheadle. The actor was replaced due to payment disputes between him and Marvel.

However, the situation with Black Panther is extremely different. Chadwick Boseman was a perfect fit to play the role and since he has passed away many think T’Challa’s sister, Shuri, will replace him as the new Black Panther. This would be an interesting evolution, but it lacks any comic book accuracy. 

There are reasons to recast and reasons to not, but one thing is for sure; Black Panther has many more stories that would be great on the big screen. 

If they choose to recast, a good path Marvel could take to introduce the character is to use the multiverse to their advantage. A T’Challa played by another actor could come into the MCU from another universe after their world has been destroyed. This is just one example of how they could go about this, there are plenty of other ideas circulating the internet.

Many fans aren’t too keen on the recast of Black Panther. Since Chadwick Boseman was such a good fit, some think it may be disrespectful to recast. Kevin Feige, President of Marvel Studios, said they will not recast T’Challa in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. This doesn’t mean he will never return to the MCU later on, it simply means he won’t be recast in the second installment of the Black Panther movies.

I believe it would be good for Marvel to do a recast of Black Panther, even Boseman’s own brother thinks it’s a good idea. As stated earlier in the article, there are still many stories to tell with the character and it would be a shame for them to all disappear.