Exclusive: ‘Black Panther’ Screenwriter on Wakanda’s Rise Within the Marvel Universe [TCA 2016]
Joe Robert Cole was a writer on the FX miniseries
The People Vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story. He’s currently writing the
Black Panther standalone film with director
Ryan Coogler, and we recently had a chance to speak with Cole about the movie at cocktail party for FX.
Black Panther lead T’Challa (
Chadwick Boseman) first appeared in the film
Captain America: Civil War as the heir to the Wakandan throne after his father was assassinated. Cole explained when the
Black Panther movie picks up, where it goes after that, and how they’re developing the MCU version of Wakanda.
“First, I think Chadwick did a phenomenal job in
Civil War in setting the tone for him being a king, for the nobility,” Cole said. “At the end, I thought his turn was fantastic and how he rose above his own vengeance. I think that was a great introduction to him. Our standalone movie will begin shortly after
Civil War ends. So we’ll be able to see him mourning and him starting to take command as king of his own nation. Lots of things are going to occur within regards to that. The country will be under threat from inside and out so we’ll learn what Wakanda is, that nation, as the most technologically advanced nation on the planet. Also, as Wakanda’s rise to prominence happens, it will affect the MCU moving forward which is really exciting.”
Cole worked in Marvel’s writer program prior to
The People Vs. O.J. Simpson, the same program where Nicole Perlman wrote the first script to
Guardians of the Galaxy. In his return to Marvel, Cole hopes to infuse
Black Panther with a bit of real African culture and history, even though Wakanda is a fictional country on the continent.
“Africa is such a huge nation,” Cole said. “There are so many countries, each of them with different histories, mythologies, and cultures but what we tried to do was hone in on some of the history, some of the cultural influences and then extrapolate out in our technology, extrapolate out in how we see Wakanda and the different parts of the country and the culture of the country as well. So we wanted to root it in reality first and then build out from there, so we’d feel pretty authentic and grounded.”
According to IMDb, Cole was also attached to write
The Inhumans, but now that the film
has been bumped from the Marvel release calendar, Cole does not know the status of that project. “I don’t know if
Inhumans is on the slate,” he said. “For some reason, everyone thinks that I’m writing or have written
Inhumans. There is not an
Inhumans script yet so I’m not sure how that will be moving forward.”
We’ll have the complete interview with Cole on
The People Vs. O.J. Simpson and
Black Panther here on /Film.
Black Panther is set for release
February 16, 2018.
getting two pissed, humbled, taking losses throughout his current run yet white people are apparently praising this comic run has me like
not feeling this possible emasculation going on when we just saw the Live action version go head to head with two of the greatest soldiers in history
in retrospect (T'Challa makes secret "pact" with a prisoner soon after the meeting), or it will be looked as 
as in why the hell did Coates had T'Challa do that for.
coates really fukkin things up brehs? 
