Marvel Studios lining up ‘Black Panther’ director, writer
For one of its more important Phase III films, Marvel Studios is making sure Black Panther fans won’t be disappointed and is close to locking down two promising creators to handle the standalone film of comics’ first black superhero.
Joe Robert Cole reportedly has been tapped to write the script for one of my most anticipated films in the next five years.
According to Variety, Cole is the studio’s choice thanks to his experience as a member of Marvel’s in-house writing program that’s already delivered a crowd-pleaser with Nicole Pearlman’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” script.
Regardless, Cole is already locked up for another Marvel Studios film as he’s writing the script for “Inhumans,” set for 2019.
Marvel Studios hasn’t shied away from its focused effort to have a black director and writer bring comics’ first black superhero to his debut solo big screen appearance.
While Chadwick Boseman has already been cast and will be making his Marvel Studios debut in next year’s “Captain America: Civil War,” his first solo outing won’t arrive in theaters until 2018. That’s a first for Marvel Studios as typically characters have been introduced in solo films before they join an ensemble piece.
Ava DuVernay was the studio’s first choice, but she declined. Interestingly, one of my proposed replacements — F. Gary Gray (“Straight Outta Compton“) — is the rumored front-runner for the gig as well as “Fast and Furious 8.”
I’m pretty excited about both of these choices. Gray is well-established with action films like “The Italian Job” and “The Negotiator” and I like Marvel giving an up and comer like Cole an opportunity to quickly make a major name for himself.
This sounds real good to me, I applaud Marvel for having the vision to see this film out the best way possible. I definitely would love to see Gray at the helms of Black Panther, he’s proven time after time throughout the years that he’s an excellent director and would prove to be a fine choice for Marvel. I would have loved for DuVernay to direct the film as well, but the more I think about it the better she turned it down. I know she would have be able to tell a great story, but i’m just not sure how she would have been able to handle big action sequences for this film. And as far as Joe Robert Cole writing the script i’m truly excited for the brother. Do I believe there are white directors and writers out there that could make a successful Black anther film yes, but I just don’t think they would be able to bring the authenticity, heart, soul and heritage that would be required for Black Panther. Hopefully they’ll do Stan Lee and the late Jack Kirby justice on the big screen, i’ll always be indebted to those two legendary gentlemen for having the vision and insight to create such a meaningful and great character almost 50 years ago during a time when a black superhero was absolutely unheard of.
I think a really good writer of any race could do a great job with it, but Marvel needed to be more diverse behind the scenes so I’m glad the focus is on finding black filmmakers for Black Panther just like I’m expecting/hoping female filmmakers will be announced soon for Captain Marvel.
Well it looks like Gray is probably out of the picture now that he’s officially signed on to direct “Fast and Furious 8”, that’s the bad news. The good news is I heard that Marvel has their eye on Ryan Cooglar who I think is a great candidate as well and is on my radar too, he did a fantastic job directing the superb “Fruitvale Station” and would definitely be able to bring the drama, heart and edge that a ‘Black panther’ film would need. Plus the brother is from my home town of Oakland so that’s another bonus. To me I truly have believed for a while that Gray, Cooglar, Antione Faqua, Ava DuVernay(Turned it down of course), Steve McQueen, John Singleton, Spike Lee and Reginald Hudlin would all be very worthy candidates to direct Black Panther and all bring their own special elements that stand them apart. That being said i’ll say this, if Marvel truly does have their eye on Cooglar I think they need to approach him seriously and tell him their vision and show him that they want him as the man at the helms to direct this film. Even though BP is still another year from shooting, they need to lock up a director so they can start truly setting the seeds to making Black Panther, you have your writer now hire your director.
Cooglar would be interesting. I’d like to see his vision as I was very impressed with “Fruitvale Station.” I’m leaning more towards wanting to see folks with more years in their career to go than their best years in the rear view though.
Yeah I hear you, a more seasoned director will definitely bring certain advantages to the table. But I also think being a younger more hungry director pushing to make your mark in Hollywood also bring certain advantages to the table as well. But i’m good either way, as you can with my choices they range from more seasoned accomplished directors to younger less experienced ones as well. I just think they all bring some good qualities with them that would be very helpful and fruitful to Black Panther. But remember the Russo Brothers, James Gunn and the Ant-Man director didn’t have the biggest film resumes either before directing an MCU film and we both know what happened with their films.
Yep, I definitely had the Russos in mind for the young hungry directors Marvel should be looking at instead of the more established ones.
Right, plus it’s harder to lock up the more established directors to multi film directing deals. Whoever Marvel decides to hire to direct Black Panther I want that director to be signed for the sequel as well, it would just make for a more cohesive and fluid film series in my opinion and in that situation a younger less established director like Coogar might turn out to be the best fit, but time will tell and we’ll see. Look at the Russos, they’re now in post production on “Civil War” and will be directing both “Infinity War” films, so Marvel has them locked up perfectly and it should make for a much more fluid ‘Cap’ and ‘Avengers’ fluid film series than it might have been.