Is T’Challa headed for the screen? If you listen to Latino Review, the answer is yes.
It makes sense. We were pretty gung-ho about a Doctor Strange movie, but since The Avengers is on track to make $600 million in the United States alone, Marvel obviously wants to introduce more Avengers to make sure the second film makes even more money.
It’d also go a long way towards resolving the not unreasonable gripe that the Avengers are about as diverse as an Abercrombie catalogue, and watching T’Challa beat people up is always entertaining, even after Marvel decided to nerf him in the comics.
But who should direct? We’ve got five nominees.
#5) Antoine Fuqua
Fuqua knows both action and drama: he directed “Training Day”, “Tears of the Sun”, and “Brooklyn’s Finest”. Of course, he’s also pretty busy, but he could probably make some room for a guaranteed massive hit.
#4) Bronwen Hughes
If you want to make a movie about Africa, go with an African director. Yeah, she made “Harriet the Spy”, but Hughes also delivered the great and underseen action movie “Stander” in 2003…and has been unfairly stuck in TV ever since. But she could deliver a great “Black Panther”.
#3) Neill Blomkamp
Come on, you’ve seen “District 9”. You know what he’s capable of. And he’s wrapping up “Elysium” for 2013, so he’ll probably be looking for work.
#2) Spike Lee
Yeah, he’s an obvious choice, to some degree. And, yeah, he’s the guy who sued a cable network over the name “Spike”. But it’s easy to forget that Lee’s also an incredibly talented filmmaker with a facility for everything from comedy to action to drama; the guy’s gotten Oscar nominations for excellent reason.
Also, offering him “Black Panther” would not only secure a critically praised director for your movie, it’ll also serve to kill that stupid “Oldboy” remake. Two birds, one stone, Marvel. Think about it.
#1) Kasi Lemmons
Lemmons, being a female director, doesn’t work much. But when she does, she turns in movies like “Eve’s Bayou” and “Talk To Me”, which, speaking as somebody born in the city, is one of the best movies about living in Washington D.C. ever made.
She’s our number one choice because not only is she an artist, she’s shown a lot of facility with fantasy whenever she’s tackled it. With the right second unit director, her “Black Panther” would be memorable, to say the least.
Anybody we missed?
image courtesy Marvel