Black Panther 3 will apparently feature Denzel Washington

Denzel Washington is promoting Gladiator II right now, but it’s a comment about a different franchise that has fans all excited.

While appearing alongside Pedro Pascal on Australia’s Today show, he gave everyone the first bit of news about the still untitled third Black Panther film. “Ryan Coogler’s writing a part for me in the next Black Panther,” he announced.

A third Black Panther film was more or less a given considering the success of the previous two. The first Black Panther movie was a bonafide pop culture phenomenon, grossing $1.3 billion and being nominated for numerous awards, including a Best Picture Oscar. Its sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever didn’t quite reach the heights of its predecessor but still did very well indeed, despite the tragic absence of leading man Chadwick Boseman, who passed away in 2020.

We can expect a long wait for the third one. Back in January 2023, star Letitia Wright told Variety that a third installment was “already in the works” but it was “gonna take a while.” Most fans would happily wait a few years to see Washington finally make his MCU debut, however.

This MCU appearance has been a long time coming

There’s been talk of Washington joining the MCU before. According to rumors, he was in the running to play Galactus, the famous planet-eating Fantastic Four villain, but turned the part down. Then an even more persistent rumor began spreading: that he would play the villain Dormmamu in Doctor Strange 3. Turns out people may have gotten the wrong threequel, then!

There’s some bad news coming with this good news, however. Washington plans to retire soon. In the interview with Today he said, “I don’t know how many more films I’m going to make. Probably not that many. I want to do things I haven’t done.” After bringing up Black Panther 3, he listed some Shakespeare characters he would like to play and then said he wanted to retire after that.

It’s quite fitting and poignant that Black Panther 3 will potentially be one of Washington’s last movies, however. The late Boseman was only able to get into the British American Drama Academy program because Washington paid for him to go. (The person who made the call to Washington was another Black entertainment icon, Phylicia Rashad.)

“Imagine receiving the letter that your tuition for that summer was paid for and that your benefactor was none other than the dopest actor on the planet,” Boseman said in a 2019 speech at the American Film Institute. Then he concluded, “There is no Black Panther without Denzel Washington.”