Last week, a rather popular and controversial rumor originating from Grace Randolph regarding Black Panther II began to swirl around the internet.
According to Randolph herself , the rumor in question is that Marvel Studios are currently making a Chadwick Boseman digital double that they would use at the beginning of Black Panther II . The current plan for the sequel is "that T'Challa will die in battle at the beginning of the film & Shuri becomes the new Black Panther."
This rumor of a digital double for Chadwick Boseman spread so far and wide that the largest newspaper in Argentina actually asked one of the highest executives at Marvel Studios whether or not it was true.
NEWS
In an interview with Victoria Alonso, Executive Vice President of Marvel Studios, Clarín asked her about the recent rumor of Marvel Studios creating a digital double of Chadwick Boseman for Black Panther II. Alonso responded very bluntly and denied it with a succinct "No."
Below (roughly translated from Spanish into English using Google Translate) is Victoria Alonso's complete response to the rumor, her praise of Chadwick Boseman as an actor and person, and that it still feels too soon for Marvel Studios to plan how to move forward in his absence.
With "Black Panther II" what will happen? There was talk of creating a Chadwick Boseman digital double...
No. There's only one Chadwick, and he's not with us. Our king, unfortunately, has died in real life, not just in fiction, and we are taking a little time to see how we return to the story and what we do to honor this chapter of what has happened to us that was so unexpected , so painful, so terrible, really. Because Chadwick was not only a wonder of being human every day that we spend together the five years that we spend together, but it also seems to me that as a character what he did elevated us as a company, and has left his moment in history. I know that sometimes two months go by or three months go by in production and one says, already, it was a long time. But it is not a long time, we have to think carefully about what we are going to do, and how, and think about how we are going to honor the franchise.
WHAT THIS MEANS
As Victoria Alonso seems to say in the interview, Marvel Studios still hasn't made any considerations for what to do moving forward without Chadwick Boseman. Alonso still considers Boseman's passing to have not been long ago and suggests that Marvel Studios still has to "think carefully" about moving forward with this franchise while still honoring Boseman.
It still seems that, as reported last September, Disney and Marvel Studios are still "processing its grief and that its focus at this stage is to pay tribute to Boseman and not on the making of a Black Panther sequel." This seems to be the right approach, considering that Chadwick Boseman died not even three months ago . So, while the release date for Black Panther II is still slated for May 6, 2022 , that doesn't mean that Marvel Studios are still beholden to that date or have to rush to any "solution" with Boseman's absence.
