With the struggle that Chadwick Boseman’s early and untimely passing brought to the attempt to make a sequel to Marvel smash hit Black Panther, currently the 15th highest-grossing movie of all-time, expectations for what to expect from the follow up, subsequently titled Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, was extremely high.
Not only did the movie deliver, but Angela Bassett, who turned in an expansive and terrific performance even garnered a Golden Globe as noted on the Black Panther Instagram account which might just prove the first step to an Oscar win for her role of Queen Ramonda.
The MCU has proven to be a juggernaut not only in terms of box office smash after smash, but in terms of legacy as well. Not only did the first Iron Man movie recently get inducted into the Library of Congress’s limited pool of films accepted as significantly and culturally important in the last year, but the first Black Panther, aside from its huge success, was both the first MCU film nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award as well as the first superhero movie to receive such an honor. That meant that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever had a lot to live up to even before its tragic setback. And with her Golden Globe win, Angela Bassett has set the groundwork for continued success in honors.
As the Marvel Phase 4 films were more about putting a button on what had happened during the first three phases in which the titan Thanos (Josh Brolin) used the Infinity Gauntlet to cause the snap/blip and the Avengers had to risk everything to bring half of all life in the universe back, it had a lot of mourning to do. Beginning with characters like Peter Parker (Tom Holland) dealing with the death of his mentor, Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) and later his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), or Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) coming to grips with being the only viable candidate to become the new Captain America, it was about burying the past. With Chadwick Boseman’s untimely passing in real life, it was about doing that all over again for some. Luckily the film had performers like Bassett to step up.
She herself died during the movie that began with the passing of the last Black Panther, T’Challa (Boseman), setting off the movie’s final act. Bassett carried the role of a mourning mother, one who first saw her husband die during the events of Civil War and then her son during Wakanda Forever, a mother tragically outliving her child who himself had struggled so hard to overcome what had happened with his father and the power of being the Black Panther. Thankfully, just because Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was a sequel, it was still judged fairly and Bassett still recognized for her stunning turn as a mourning Queen Ramonda, leading her people with strength and grace even as she looks out on her homeland through a veil of tears.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever comes to Disney+ February 1, 2023.
Source: Black Panther/Instagram