Ryan Coogler Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

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.

BAFTA has set Black Panther director Ryan Coogler to deliver this year’s prestigious David Lean Lecture.

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.

Remembering a legend. Two years after, Chadwick Boseman’s unexpected death, filmmaker Ryan Coogler is looking back at their final memories together.

Michaela Coel revealed her pride to be joining the cast of Wakanda Forever, as she took her place on the red carpet in London for the film’s European premiere.

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.

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” hits theaters next Friday and closes out Phase 4 of the MCU. But Ryan Coogler‘s sequel to his 2018 film is highly anticipated for several reasons.

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.

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” wraps up MCU‘s Phase 4 on November 11, and advance word from the film’s world premiere two days ago is very, very strong. No surprise there, as Ryan Coogler cooked up one of Marvel‘s best films with 2018’s “Black Panther.” But the film sees Coogler and its cast and crew face the death of star Chadwick Boseman last year, a difficult thing to manage for any film.

Back and better than ever! Six years after the release of her last album, Anti, Rihanna’s musical comeback is here. 

Rihanna has announced that she will make her long awaited return to music tomorrow with ‘Lift Me Up’, a song recorded for the soundtrack of upcoming Marvel movie ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’.The song was written by Nigerian singer and producer Tems as a tribute to the late actor – and star of the first ‘Black Panther’ movie – Chadwick Boseman. Ludwig Göransson, who wrote the score for the film and produced this track, is also credited as a co-writer of the song, alongside the film’s director Ryan Coogler and Rihanna herself.“After speaking with Ryan, and hearing his direction for the film and the song, I wanted to write something that portrays a warm embrace from all the people that I’ve lost in my life”, says Tems.

Stars, filmmakers and special guests hit the El Capitan Theatre on Wednesday night in Hollywood for the world premiere of Marvel Studios’ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Disney begins overseas rollout of the highly anticipated sequel on November 9 and releases domestically November 11.

She’s back! Rihanna released a preview of her new song before the tribute track — dedicated to the late Chadwick Boseman — releases in full on Friday, October 28.

Netflix is moving forward with its feature film adaptation of the popular Black Samurai novels as it has tapped Chad Stahelski to direct and Leigh Dana Jackson to adapt. Stahelski will also produce along with Jason Spitz and Alex Young for 87Eleven Entertainment as well as John Schoenfelder and Russell Ackerman for Addictive Pictures.

News & Documentary Emmy winner Peter Nicks (Homeroom) has been tapped to direct Underrated, a new feature doc on NBA superstar Stephen Curry from Apple Original Films, A24 and Curry’s Unanimous Media.

Lupita Nyong’o opened up about what it was like to discover the rewritten “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” script while processing the death of Chadwick Boseman.

EXCLUSIVE: Paul Calderón (Pulp Fiction, Bosch) has joined the cast of the Marvel Studios Disney+ series Ironheart in an undisclosed role, Deadline has learned.

“Creed III” is nearly here.The third film in the popular “Rocky” off-shoot will arrive in theaters on March 3, 2023, and this time Michael B. Jordan will both star and direct.