This was in July 2019
Marvel has big plans for its Black Panther franchise that might include replacing T’Challa with everyone’s favorite tech-savvy girl, Shuri (Letitia Wright).
www.cheatsheet.com
And June 2019
According to sources close to WGTC, Marvel plans to replace T'Challa as Black Panther in either the character's next solo film or the one after that.
wegotthiscovered.com
They really planned on having T'Challa rule as king and making Shuri Black Panther as far back as 2019 when he had just gotten his powers.
I've said this.
nikkas should have known, this is Disney. BP being replaced for a woman was inevitable the moment Tchalla appeared in the MCU. They will not pass up this chance. They will sacrifice entertainment/story for their agenda every time without fail. This movie is one of the biggest examples to date.
Chadwicks death was convenient for Disney, it let them pull this off faster and gave plausible deniability for the choice. "No no no, we aren't recasting tchalla because he's irreplaceable and needs to have this movie without his character as a tribute breh.
nobody can do with Chadwick did thats why we replaced him with shuri"
The story/universe explanation for tchalla being dead in this movie is a clusterfukk. The addition of a baby tchalla is presumably to shut up fans who might otherwise realize that the only prominent black male character in the series (mubaku is a joke) is replaced. But making this character the next black panther will require even more bullshytty writing.
Its just an awful creative decision all around but with Disney the agenda comes first. Wouldn't be surprised if they strung out more Shuri BP flicks while bait and switching baby tchalla a few more years.