UB Spotlight: ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ Premieres in Africa

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” directed by Ryan Coogler, hits theaters this Friday November 11th, 2022.

Yesterday, the film made it’s African premiere, at the Filmhouse Cinemas IMAX Lekki in Lagos, Nigeria. “The story is Africa, the story even though you know Wakanda is a fictional country, we pull from real places in terms of culture that we represent and our inspiration,” stated Ryan Coogler.

“If you know, like African American history, it’s tough for us to trace our genetic lineage due to some purposeful things that happened to us during the transatlantic slave trade. So one of the things I spoke with the late Chadwick Boseman about when we first met and were getting ready to put his movie on was that he put me up on something called africanancestry.com, another company I like.

It was specific about finding out where you have a heritage to know. So Chad had done his own, and he explained how it is done. So when I did mine, it came back as having lineage to a part of Cameroon, but mainly Yoruba lineage. It was something that I held on to and always wanted to know, to travel to Nigeria for that reason.”

The press conference was followed by a talent and industry-focused press conference hosted by Nigerian radio and television on air personality, IK Osakioduwa and popular South Africa Radio and Television presenter, Anele Mdoda. Media had the opportunity to engage with talent from the film in a question and answer session, followed by an insightful session that featured director Ryan Coogler, Christine Service (Senior Vice President and General Manager of The Walt Disney Company Africa), Moses Babatope (Deputy Managing Director for Filmhouse Group and Managing Director of FilmOne Entertainment), as well as Chioma Ude, Founder of AFRIFF.

The group are visiting Nigeria for the first time to kick-off continent-wide celebrations ahead of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever‘s” release.

In Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), Shuri (Letitia Wright), M’Baku (Winston Duke), Okoye (Danai Gurira) and the Dora Milaje (including Florence Kasumba), fight to protect their nation from intervening world powers in the wake of King T’Challa‘s death.

As the Wakandans strive to embrace their next chapter, the heroes must band together with the help of War Dog Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) and Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) and forge a new path for the kingdom of Wakanda. Introducing Tenoch Huerta as Namor, king of a hidden undersea nation, the film also stars Dominique Thorne, Michaela Coel, Mabel Cadena and Alex Livanalli.

UB Spotlight: “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” Premieres in Africa!