LOS ANGELES — The “Black Panther” franchise has revealed only one thing for sure about its new titular hero: She’s a woman.
In the new trailer, to drop Monday, Shuri — T’Challa’s brilliant younger sister, played by Letitia Wright in the 2018 film — is suspected of carrying the mantle, aligning with years of reports and speculation about the character’s new role. But the new Marvel hero also could be Lupita Nyong’o’s Nakia, Danai Gurira’s Okoye or someone else altogether.
“Show them who we are!” says their mother, Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), in the trailer, as the fictional African nation processes its grief while a ferocious war is waged on land and under the sea.
“I think this film has the fog of loss over it, and anamorphic lenses warp the image a little bit,” director Ryan Coogler told Entertainment Weekly. “Sometimes when you go through profound loss, it can warp how you look at the world.”