MCU fans aren’t too happy with Disney at the moment, following their explanation as to why Black Panther’s lines in the next Marvel series will be replaced with a narrated segment by Spider-Man.
Chadwick Boseman’s tragic passing left a sizeable hole in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that, frankly, can never truly be repaired.
Love it or hate it, the one thing that you have to give the MCU (and, by extension, Disney) credit for is its incredible casting department, because many of the actors are now synonymous with the characters they portray.
Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, Chris Evans’ Captain America, Tom Hiddleston’s Loki– I could go on. My point is that separating any of the biggest names in the Marvel franchise from their characters is now borderline impossible, because they did such a great job of casting them in the first place.
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However, if you ask me, Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther is quite possibly the best casting decision Disney ever made, which has left them with quite the problem following his death.
Whether or not you consider recasting T'Challa to be disrespectful or not, the fact of the matter is that even finding someone who can match up to Boseman’s performance is a big ask.
So, when it came time to feature Black Panther in the upcoming MCU miniseries Marvel Zombies, set to premiere on Disney+ on September 24, the showrunners realised they had a bit of an issue on their hands.
As Marvel Zombies is technically a follow-up to the fifth episode of What If…? (which featured Chadwick Boseman voicing T’Challa), they either had to recast or omit Black Panther entirely.
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Turns out, Disney found a third option, as T’Challa will instead be silent during all of his scenes in Marvel Zombies. These scenes will then be narrated by Spider-Man’s voice actor Hudson Thames, according to showrunner Bryan Andrews.
“Yeah, for all the reasons you laid out, that’s why we chose to have Peter [Parker] narrate that moment. We didn’t have Chadwick. If we had Chadwick, it would’ve been completely different choices”, Andrews revealed during an interview with ScreenRant.
“If we had Chadwick, he would’ve had his own Star-Lord T’Challa spinoff show long before we did the zombie thing. But being able to revisit his character in that way, the way it plays out, it was another way to be with him in some strange way, even though there were no words. You know what I mean? It’s still Chadwick’s Black Panther, and that’s rad.”
Unfortunately for Disney, the decision hasn’t exactly landed with folks online, because you’d be hard-pressed to find a comment on Twitter (or anywhere else, for that matter) in support of it.
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“With all due respect to the late and extremely talented Chadwick Boseman, why don’t they cast someone different to voice him in animation? Tom Holland isn’t the one who voices Peter nor many other MCU actors”, commented user @capitalspidey.
“Goddamn are we never getting another Black Panther actor again or what???” replied user @heartlesskrook.
“I think they should use a new actor. Tchalla has existed since the 60s, he's been around long before Chadwick and he'll be around long after”, commented user @NyahojaSarahFan.
Admittedly, I think Disney may get a pass for this specific choice. Considering this is the same T’Challa that Boseman originally voiced, the choice not to replace him for Marvel Zombies does feel like the respectful choice.
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As far as the rest of the MCU is concerned though, I think perhaps it is finally time to recast the role. I just hope that whoever they do pick has a single iota of the charm and gravitas that Boseman did, because they’ll have their work cut out for them.
Topics: MCU, Marvel, Disney, TV And Film