Sometimes a casting call for a movie will reveal more about the production than perhaps the studio intended, as was the case with the casting calls for Power Rangers and Captain America: Civil War. Now the same casting call website behind the Captain America: Civil War reveal has posted the casting call for another Marvel film, Black Panther, and it’s filled with new information that may or may not be true. Sometimes these casting calls include details that are subject to change.
One big reveal: John Boyega (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) has been cast in the movie, according to the full casting call at Movie Casting Call, which was something that we’d heard both rumors and denials about last week. The casting call also confirms Lupita Nyong’o and Michael B. Jordan have been cast, and it confirms the return of Ulysses Klaw (Andy Serkis) and Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman).
The casting call also offers a rundown of characters being cast, and this roster is looking amazing. For starters, the character we suspected Nyong’o may play — T’Challa’s love interest Monica Lynne — is listed among the cast here. The rest of the cast list reveals we may be seeing Okoye, White Wolf, Erik Killmonger, Reverend Achebe (and his puppet!), and Man-Ape, among many more. Here’s part of the cast breakdown from Movie Casting Call:
• N’GASSI – Adviser to T’Challa, acting regent when he goes away on missions.
• OKOYE – One of the former Dora Milaje, a ceremonial betrothed/bodyguard of T’Challa. Okoye is of the J’Kuwali tribe and acted as a traditional, proper concomitant to the king, speaking only to the king and only in Hausa, an African dialect not widely spoken in Wakanda and thus affording the king and his wives a measure of privacy.
• QUEEN DIVINE JUSTICE – The street-smart queen of the Jabari tribe of Wakanda raised in Chicago, and former Dora Milaje (ceremonial betrothed/bodyguard) of T’Challa. She originally went by the name Chanté Giovanni Brown.
• W’KABI – T’Challa’s competent second-in-command, completely loyal to his liege.
• ZURI – A grumpy and gigantic elderly warrior. A close friend of the late T’Chaka, and one of T’Challa’s most trusted advisers.
• REVEREND ACHEBE – A poor farmer somewhere in South Africa, Achebe sold his soul to the demon Mephisto. He is portrayed as a grinning, unpredictable, lunatic, warrior-mystic, regularly talking to his hand-puppet Daki with delusions that it’s truly alive, and engineering complex plots of social unrest for profit or entertainment.
• ERIK KILLMONGER – A powerful warrior and strategic genius in politics and economics.
• MALICE – Wakandan Mutate with superhuman strength, speed, and agility. She is a former Dora Milaje (ceremonial betrothed/bodyguard) of T’Challa.
• MAN-APE – Ruler of the Jabari Tribe a recognized micronation within Wakanda’s borders. M’Baku was Wakanda’s greatest warrior second only to the Black Panther. He plotted to usurp the throne with the help of the outlawed White Gorilla cult who were ancient rivals of the Black Panther cult, which basically made them heretics since Panther worship is the state religion. Founding member of the “Pan African Congress on the Treatment of Superhumans”.
• WHITE WOLF – T’Challa’s adopted elder brother and the former leader of the Hatut Zeraze, the espionage elite police of Wakanda. Exiled by T’Challa, due to using torture and assassinations in his zeal to root out potential threats to national security.
This. Has. Everything.
I can’t see how all of those characters could be in the first Black Panther movie and get enough screen time for it to make any sense, but I do love the variety here. Although how the hell will they put Man-Ape and White Wolf on film without courting controversy? Perhaps the script is unfinished and they’re casting a wide net to narrow down the final draft based on the actors they find? Maybe they’re throwing in extra characters to obscure their real plans? Filming doesn’t start until January of 2017 for a planned release date of February 16, 2018, so they still have time to cast a non-white actor as White Wolf and make the blogosphere collapse under the weight of its own thinkpieces.
(Via Movie Casting Call and Screen Rant)
