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You can soon catch Chadwick Boseman, star of Marvel’s “Black Panther,” in both theaters and newsstands near you.
The Anderson native is gracing the Feb. 19 cover of Time magazine.
The cover story celebrates his role as T’Challa, king of the fictional African nation of Wakanda, and what it means for African-American portrayal in mainstream films, especially in big-budget superhero movies often led by white men.
The two-hour-and-14-minute romp follows the Marvel cinematic universe timeline and tracks the aftermath of the death of T’Challa’s father, T’Chaka, in 2016’s “Captain America: Civil War.”
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“You might say that this African nation is fantasy,” Boseman, 40, says in the article. “But to have the opportunity to pull from real ideas, real places and real African concepts, and put it inside of this idea of Wakanda—that’s a great opportunity to develop a sense of what that identity is, especially when you’re disconnected from it.”
Boseman graduated from T.L. Hanna High School in Anderson in 1995. He then went to Howard University in Washington, D.C.
Black Panther is Marvel’s first go-around at a black superhero after the Blade trilogy starring Wesley Snipes, which lasted from 1998 to 2004.
DC Comics had a shot at their own black superhero movie before they decided to cast Ryan Reynolds as the lead in 2011’s “Green Lantern,” despite the fact that the character was black in the comics. The movie was a critical and financial flop.
Black Panther’s prospects, however, look pretty good so far. It sits at a cozy 98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes as of Friday morning and it is projected to rake in $150 million next weekend, which would bring it very close to breaking even on its $200 million budget in just a few days.
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