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Who was happier to see new “Black Panther” footage at San Diego Comic-Con: The fans or the cast?
It was a close call as the audience in Hall H on Saturday leapt to its feet, while the star-studded ensemble grinned and joined together for a group hug. The moderator of Marvel‘s panel on Saturday, Chris Hardwick, informed the crowd that the stars had just seen the fresh film footage for the first time as well. Basically, it was loud.
Director Ryan Coogler introduced the footage, which was for the Comic-Con crowd’s eyes only, following a brief Q&A with a long lineup of cast members, including Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Daniel Kaluuya, Forest Whitaker, and Andy Serkis.
The scene opened in a high-end poker room. Boseman, Nyong’o, and Gurira’s characters whisper as Serkis arrives to negotiate a deal with Freeman.
“Don’t worry, they’re just here to gamble,” Serkis says of his cronies. Then to Freeman, “Did you bring the diamonds?”
Serkis, who has one prosthetic arm in the film, pulls something marked “fragile” out from the fly of his pants. One of the cronies hears Gurira’s character, Okoye, whisper too loud, and the action-packed portion of the scene begins.
Okoye pulverizes her attackers with a golden spear, and at one point tosses her wig in one man’s face. Serkis begins shooting at Boseman, while Nyong’o opens fire as well.
Boseman leaps up an entire story, grabs the balcony and lifts himself up to stop Serkis from getting away. The villain’s arm opens up to reveal a high-powered gun which he shoots at the hero.
The scene then cuts to a montage set to the tune of Kendrick Lamar’s DNA.
Before the footage screened, Coogler expressed his appreciation to the Comic-Con crowd. “I grew up as a young black kid in the Bay Area,” he said. “As I got older I wanted to find a comic book character who looked like I did.” The first character he saw that did that was Black Panther.
“To be here … is amazing,” Coogler said, adding that he wants the movie to show “someone who got his power from the people around him and his history.”
The rest of the panel was dedicated to Marvel’s upcoming film “Thor: Ragnarok,” and concluded by re-showing the “Avengers: Infinity War” trailer that was screened the weekend prior at Disney’s D23 expo.
