Marvel’s Black Panther movie comes out next month, and fans everywhere couldn’t be more excited. What they might not know, however, is what we almost got a movie with the character back in the 90’s – starring Wesley Snipes!
In a recent interview with THR, Snipes revealed quite a bit of information about the scrapped film:
“We went through three different scripts and a couple of different director options — very interesting director options at the time.”
He then spoke about his vision:
“I laid on him my vision of the film being closer to what you see now: the whole world of Africa being a hidden, highly technically advanced society, cloaked by a force field, Vibranium. John was like, ‘Nah! Hah! Hah! See, he’s got the spirit of the Black Panther, but he is trying to get his son to join the [civil rights activist] organization. And he and his son have a problem, and they have some strife because he is trying to be politically correct and his son wants to be a knucklehead.’”
Snipes continued:
“I am loosely paraphrasing our conversation. But ultimately, John wanted to take the character and put him in the civil rights movement. And I’m like, ‘Dude! Where’s the toys?! They are highly technically advanced, and it will be fantastic to see Africa in this light opposed to how Africa is typically portrayed.’ I wanted to see the glory and the beautiful Africa. The jewel Africa.”
But it just never happened:
“Ultimately, we couldn’t find the right combination of script and director and, also at the time, we were so far ahead of the game in the thinking, the technology wasn’t there to do what they had already created in the comic book.”
He obviously went on to play Blade – a role he’d love to continue playing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe if given the chance.
For now, we’ll see Black Panther next when the movie hits theaters in February 16th.
What do you think about the scrapped Black Panther movie? Would you have watched it? Be sure to tell us your thoughts in the comments!