Writer-director Ryan Coogler has shared what he originally had in mind for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever before Chadwick Boseman tragically died of colon cancer at age 43. Coogler told the New York Times that the sequel was first structured as a father-son story. In this plot, Boseman’s T’Challa returns from a five-year absence caused by Thanos and meets his son, Touissant, for the first time. In an opening animated sequence, viewers learn that Touissant isn’t aware that his father is the Black Panther. His mother, Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), has also since remarried a Haitian man. Cut to three years after the Blip and T’Challa is now back and co-parenting his child. “We had some crazy scenes in there for Chad, man,†Coogler recalled to the Times. For Touissant’s 8th birthday, “they do a ritual where they go out into the bush and have to live off the land. But something happens and T’Challa has to go save the world with his son on his hip,†Coogler said. He added that Namor, the Talokan leader who fights in tiny shorts, was still a part of this version of this script. However, C.I.A. director Val (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) was initially intended to be more of a villain in “a three-way conflict between Wakanda, the U.S., and Talokan†told largely from Touissant’s perspective. Val’s part was pared down to make space for T’Challa’s death, Coogler said. The revised Black Panther 2, which stars Letitia Wright’s Shuri as the new Black Panther, opened in November with an increased focus on grief.