AUGUST 28, 2020: THE DAY THE WORLD lost actor Chadwick Aaron Boseman when he succumbed to his private battle with cancer. His passing shocked not only his legion of fans and many of his peers, but Marvel Studios as well. For five years, Boseman was their Black Panther, their friend and active collaborator. His demise marked the first time in the studio’s 12-year history that it had lost one of the beloved ensemble performers integral to the ongoing Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Across four separate films and the animated series What If…?, Boseman embodied T’Challa, the Black Panther and King of Wakanda, a character who changed the diversity of the studio’s primary heroes and proved that black superheroes could be a box office juggernaut (with 2018’s Black Panther grossing $1.3 billion globally) if you just told their stories.
In 2020, the sequel was in pre-production when the stunning news about Boseman literally stopped everything for the studio, director Ryan Coogler and executive producer Nate Moore. “I would say that the loss was pretty, speaking from his office in Los Angeles.
