Black Panther represents the beginning of an exciting new franchise for Marvel, as the studio has big plans to not only follow up the film with several sequels but to also cross its characters over into other MCU pics.
For starters, we’ll see a few Black Panther cast members in Avengers: Infinity War, which is only natural as the event movie is uniting the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Universe together for the first time. There will be quite a lot of them, too, as alongside the likes of Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa, Letitia Wright’s Shuri and Danai Gurira’s Okoye, we now know that the film will also feature Winston Duke reprising his role as M’Baku.
While at a press junket to promote Black Panther, Duke spoke to LRM and revealed that his character will play a “big role” in Infinity War. Fans already know from the trailers released thus far that Wakanda will be a major location in the movie, but Duke’s comments seem to suggest that the pic will find time to explore the country’s political situation as well.
“I can tell you that, you know … plays a big role in Wakanda’s story in that film, and the role that Wakanda plays in the Avengers: Infinity War. He will be tested, as you can suspect, with Thanos coming and doing his thing. You’re going to like what you see, it’s going to be epic. Black Panther’s revolutionary and then the world and all the things Wakanda creates, all that is tested in Infinity War.”
In Black Panther, M’Baku will be introduced as the leader of the Jabari tribe of the Wakandan people. He disagrees with King T’Challa’s friendliness with the outside world and wants the country to go back to its isolationist routes. In the comics, the character is a supervillain known as Man-Ape, but it sounds like the MCU version will be a much more layered interpretation. Reading between the lines of what Duke’s saying, it also seems like T’Challa and M’Baku will have to put aside their differences in Infinity War in order to protect their country from alien invaders.
Black Panther is now right around the corner, landing in cinemas worldwide on February 16th, while Avengers: Infinity War won’t be too far behind, as it storms into theaters on May 4th.