With Marvel's upcoming slate featuring a trio of sequels — "Iron Man 3," "Thor 2" and a follow-up to "Captain America: The First Avenger" — speculation has been running high and wide about what their next standalone movie character might be. We're not going to run through them all again, but remember, it was just a couple of weeks ago when Marvel honcho Kevin Feige said there were two more unannounced movies in the works. And if this report is accurate, you can probably knock off one of them.
According to Latino Review's multiple sources, Black Panther will be the next Marvel hero to get a standalone movie. And we have to say, it's a pretty ballsy move. The character is certainly lesser known than some of the other options Marvel has at their disposal, but it's one they've been hinting at for a while. As savvy, Easter Egg-hunting fans know, as far back as "Iron Man 2," the seeds were planted with the the fictional African nation of Wakanda first glimpsed on one of Tony Stark's computer screens. And as comic fans also know, vibranium, the material that is used to make Captain America's shield, is also found in Wakanda. Finally, Black Panther is perhaps best known as part of "The Avengers," and when that inevitable sequel arrives, will they be bulking up the team with one more character?
Of course, none of this is official and it could be wrong, but many of the pieces fit into place and also remember, Mark Bailey was hired to write a script more than a year ago. We recenty had heard separately that Black Panther was going to be set up/cameo in the sequel to "Captain America: The First Avenger," and with this bit of news, that seems to make a lot of sense. Moreover, this is a character Marvel has been trying to bring to the big screen for years (they got the rights back in 2005) and now that they're flying very high off the back of "The Avengers," they can afford to do something a little bit unconventional. So we'll see how this news develops…
But if Black Panther is on the way, any ideas on who should play the role?