‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ reveals its long duration

The duration of ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ has been revealed, being the second longest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe behind ‘Avengers: Endgame’.

Movie theater chains in the United States have begun to indicate a duration of 2 hours and 41 minutessomething that The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed with The Walt Disney Company.

By comparison, ‘Endgame’ was 3 hours and 1 minute long, ‘Eternals’ was 2 hours and 36 minutes long, while this year’s movie ‘The Batman’ was 2 hours and 56 minutes long. Of course, ‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’ is the longest superhero movie in history, at over four hours, but it wasn’t a theatrical release.

The great mystery of the film revolves around who is Black Panther in ‘Wakanda Forever’. This is because the actor who played T’Challa, Chadwick Boseman, tragically passed away in August 2020 (recall Lupita Nyong’o’s fond memory of Chadwick Boseman on Instagram), and it was decided that the film will be an examination of grief and how the nation of Wakanda moves onsince it was “too soon” to replace Chadwick Boseman, in the words of Kevin Feige.

Speaking about what it was like to shoot the second film without Boseman, the actor who plays M’Baku, Winston Duke, told Variety: “There was no preparation for it. It was melancholy, to say the least… We all became very close friends, so you got to know him as a real person, you got to understand him.”

“This wasn’t an aspirational person, who many idolize, but a real human being. I know he’s a husband, I know he’s a brother, he’s all those things.”

“You miss the person, you miss the banter between takes, you miss the slapstick, the slams, the punches… you miss that real human connection.”

The film will also deal with a conflict between Wakanda and an underwater civilizationleadered by namorwho looks like he’s going to be another mutant in the MCU.