New ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ Clips & Mini-Trailer: Wakanda Faces Off Against Namor On November 11

A very vibrant runway leading into Thanksgiving for sure for movie theaters as Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is headed for a second weekend down around -60% for $70M-$72M. Through five days, the Ryan Coogler-directed Disney and Marvel Studios sequel has amassed $204.8M with Tuesday earning $12.4M, the third best Tuesday of November after Frozen 2 ($20.8M, Nov. 26, 2019) and Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire ($15.96M, Nov. 26, 2013).

With a career spanning over three decades, costume designer Ruth Carter has crafted looks for the early 1800s, mid-20th Century America and all aspect of ’90s and early 2000’s Los Angeles (from “B.A.P.S.” to “Love & Basketball”). Her efforts have seen her rewarded with three Oscar nominations for Best Costume Design and a win in 2020 for Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther.” She revisited that pop culture inflection in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and it was arguably one of the biggest challenges of her career.

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” opens in theaters today in the US to close out Phase 4 for the MCU. But don’t expect the film’s worldwide box office numbers to reach those of Ryan Coogler‘s 2018 film.

**Spoiler Alert: This is an article for those that have already seen “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” If you have not, bookmark this page, turn around, see the movie and come back. Spoiler Alert end.** A dramatic meditation on grief, mourning, and healing, while also acting as an action-packed superhero look at how vengeance can consume us—not to mention all its geopolitical and ideological ideas of protecting one’s identities, traditions, and right to exist—Marvel’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is in theaters now and is a lot of movie.

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” opens in theaters today in the US to close out Phase 4 for the MCU. But don’t expect the film’s worldwide box office numbers to reach those of Ryan Coogler‘s 2018 film.

Honoring the king. When Chadwick Boseman died of colon cancer in August 2020, director Ryan Coogler reworked the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever script to write out the late actor’s character.

Carrying his legacy. After Chadwick Boseman‘s 2020 death, Black Panther director Ryan Coogler decided that his Marvel character would also die and a new Black Panther would be born in Wakanda Forever. (WARNING: Spoilers ahead.)

Disney/Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever got out to a $10.1M start in  17 international box office markets on Wednesday. This is ahead of continued offshore rollout through Friday and the sequel’s domestic debut on Friday (domestic previews start Thursday). 

While it’s unclear whether or not Ryan Coogler is going to return to direct another “Black Panther” film after the release of ‘Wakanda Forever,’ it has long been known the filmmaker is working alongside Marvel Studios to develop spinoffs for Disney+. Originally, it was revealed that the spinoff would be focused on the Dora Milaje, led by Danai Gurira’s Okoye.

Despite the presence of New Line’s Black Adam and Universal’s franchise title Halloween Ends at the October box office, the drought we’ve been weathering since the second frame of August with U.S./Canada weekend ticket sales averaging $58M has been stinging to say the least.

There’s no line in ‘Wakanda Forever,’ the sequel to Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther” (2018), as bruising and seething as “Bury me in the ocean with my ancestors that jumped from the ships because they knew death was better than bondage.” But emotionally, this somber ‘Black Panther’ sequel is just as visceral and lacerating and perhaps just as absolutist. And spiritually, there is great lineage to this bitter resignation about demise, pride, ancestries, the great depths below us, and the refusal to accept enslavement.

The 2018 blockbuster Black Panther marked several milestones for Marvel and the whole MCU in ways they would be hard to follow, not least being its wide-ranging cultural impact, its groundbreaking and game-changing opening for Black filmmakers in front of and behind the camera, its imprint on social issues and certainly the fact that it became the first so-called comic book movie adaptation ever to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. That is some legacy, and add its three quarters of a billion dollar worldwide gross and you have an obvious candidate for a blockbuster sequel. However the tragic, completely unexpected death of its star, Chadwick Boseman at just age 43, and the whole idea of carrying the story forward without its key driving on screen force of King T’Challa would be a tall order for anyone. Fortunately for us it is one that has been largely met with dignity, grief over unthinkable loss, and a determination to do the right thing by director Ryan Coogler.

In anticipation of its release this coming week, Disney/Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever continued its promotional tour with a historic premiere in Lagos, Nigeria on Sunday evening. This was a major event — and the first time a Marvel movie has held a premiere locally — with a large group of talent, filmmakers and press on hand for the black carpet rollout. The sequel to the $1.348B grossing original pic played across multiple screens at Filmhouse Cinemas IMAX Lekki.

Marvel’s first mutant, Namor, is finally making his live-action debut in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” next week. Played by Mexican actor Tenoch Huerta, Namor’s inclusion comes after a long journey that includes failed attempts by Universal Pictures to make a solo film back in the 2000s before the character could join the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

A day after releasing the audio for “Lift Me Up,” her new song from the soundtrack of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” Rihanna has dropped the official music video, and you can watch it above now.The video is a fairly simple thing — Rihanna just went to a beach somewhere and had a camera crew capture her looking emotional against a sunset and twilight sky. It’s interspersed with footage from “Wakanda Forever,” which will of course be its own kind of emotional, since the context both in the story and in the real world is the tragic loss of Chadwick Boseman, who died of cancer in 2020.The song is Rihanna’s first solo single since “Lemon” in 2017.Alongside Rihanna’s music, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” stars Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia, Leticia Wright as Shuri, Danai Gurira as Okoye, Florence Kasumba as Ayo, Winston Duke as M’Baku, Angela Bassett as Queen Ramonda and Martin Freeman as Everett Ross, all returning from “Black Panther.” Tenoch Huerta plays Namor, the king of Talokan, joined by Dominique Thorne as future Ironheart RiRi Williams, Michaela Coel, Mabel Cadena and Alex Livinalli. Ryan Coogler directed the film, which lands in theaters Nov.

Rihanna, the top-selling digital singles artist of all time, is back to add to that record. Tonight marked the release of the first single from the forthcoming soundtrack to the eagerly awaited film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.