‘Black Panther’ director Ryan Coogler reflects on Chadwick Boseman’s death

Ryan Coogler is opening up about the moment his “heart broke,” following the death of friend and collaborator, Chadwick Boseman.

The filmmaker, who directed Boseman in Black Panther and was set to work with him again on its sequel, recently told The Guardian that he entered a period of “complicated grief” when the actor died of colon cancer in 2020. Working on Wakanda Forever without Boseman in the leading role was especially painful but, in some ways, Coogler said that the work itself helped him get through the loss.

“Sometimes it’s actually a relief having something to do,” he told the outlet. “So you can’t sit in that terrible feeling.”

The film also offered a form of catharsis. Coogler and his co-screenwriter Joe Robert Cole opted not to recast Boseman’s role as Wakanda’s King T’Challa, and instead reworked the script to address his death and pay tribute to the performer. But once the film was done, Coogler came to a devastating realization.

“After we put the movie out, my heart broke almost even more, because I realized all the work had been distracting me from the fact that Chad’s not going to make any more movies,” he recalled.

Coogler previously told Entertainment Weekly that in the wake of Boseman’s death, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to continue making films, let alone direct the Marvel sequel without Boseman in the leading role.

“I was at a point when I was like, ‘I’m walking away from this business,'” Coogler said in 2022. ‘I didn’t know if I could make another movie period, [let alone] another Black Panther movie, because it hurt a lot. I was like, ‘Man, how could I open myself up to feeling like this again?'”

Ultimately, he and Marvel decided to move forward with a story that would honor Boseman’s legacy and allow a different character to take up the Black Panther mantle. While Coogler is expected to helm at least one more Black Panther film — at least according to Denzel Washington — he has since moved beyond the Marvel franchise.

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His latest project, the supernatural period drama Sinners, stars another Black Panther alum, Michael B. Jordan. It follows two brothers (both played by Jordan) who leave their troubled lives behind and return to their hometown, only to stumble across a greater evil. 

Trailers for the film have already unveiled a certain blood-sucking creature as the main antagonist, but Coogler has avoided labeling Sinners as a vampire movie, promising something a little more complex.

“It’s genre-bending, it’s genre-fluid, the film,” he told EW. “There are vampires in the film, but it’s really about a lot more than just that. It’s one of many elements, I’ll say. And I think we’re going to surprise people.”