The Director of Hollywood movie, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ryan Coogler, has stated reasons the Marvel movie was premiered in Nigeria.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, a sequel to the 2018 Black Panther, was co-written by Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole. It’s an American superhero movie based on a Marvel comics character.
It still tells the story of the leader of the clan, T’Challa, the king of Wakanda who was played by the late Chadwick Boseman.
On Sunday morning, November 6, some cast and crew members were present at a press conference held at Lagos Continental Hotel for their interviews and speech conference.
Notable celebrities present are Letitia Wright, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Tenoch Huerta Mejía, Winston Duke, as well as director Ryan Coogler.
Ryan stated that the decision to come to Nigeria was partially inspired by the late actor, Chadwick. He said prior to his death, they had discussed about premiering in Nigeria and other parts of Africa because of its cultural histories especially the slave trade.
He said many parts of African served as an inspiration for the movie however Nigeria played a major role.
Ryan who is an African American said, “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.”
