Marvel Zombies Showrunner Spills What If...? Team's Original Plans For Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther And A Heartbreaking T'Challa Moment
Without Chadwick Boseman, everything changed—the next chapter was rebuilt around entirely different choices.
Marvel Zombies has a quietly gutting moment with T'Challa, and there is a very practical, very bittersweet reason it plays the way it does. The short version: they did not have Chadwick Boseman. The longer version includes a scrapped spinoff, a no-recast policy that shaped everything, and a little inside baseball from Ryan Coogler.
The Star-Lord T'Challa spinoff that almost happened
In a new interview with ScreenRant, Marvel Zombies showrunner Bryan Andrews said the team once kicked around a Star-Lord T'Challa spinoff before Boseman passed away in 2020.
"We didn't have Chadwick. If we had Chadwick, it would've been completely different choices. If we had Chadwick, he would've had his own Star-Lord T'Challa spinoff show long before we did the zombie thing. But being able to revisit his character in that way, even though there were no words... It's still Chadwick's Black Panther, and that's rad."
That stings, because you can immediately picture the show. But it also explains why Marvel Zombies takes a different route with T'Challa.
Why Spider-Man does the talking
The series includes a non-speaking appearance from the King of Wakanda, paired with Peter Parker's narration. Andrews says they chose that route because they didn't have Boseman's voice and weren't going to fake it or replace it.
That tracks with Marvel's stance since Boseman's death from colon cancer in August 2020. Back then, executive producer Victoria Alonso told fans Black Panther: Wakanda Forever would not use a digital double. Writer-director Ryan Coogler, who had already turned in a draft, went back to rework the film with co-writer Joe Robert Cole, ultimately following the comics by passing the mantle to Letitia Wright's Shuri. Later, Marvel made it official: T'Challa would not be recast — and that respect extends to the animated projects, too. Hence, Peter carries the narration here.
Inside baseball: Coogler gave notes
Marvel Zombies executive producer Brad Winderbaum added that they screened an early animatic for Coogler to weigh in on the sequence. According to Winderbaum, Coogler offered notes that were genuinely additive — small creative nudges that helped the moment land without betraying the no-recast commitment.
Quick refresher: T'Challa as Star-Lord in What If...?
If you&aposre wondering why a Star-Lord T'Challa spinoff was on the table in the first place, it goes back to What If...? season 1, episode 2 — the one that reimagines who Yondu snatches from Earth.
- Yondu and the Ravagers abduct T'Challa instead of Peter Quill.
- Twenty years later, T'Challa is the galaxy's most competent do-gooder in a Star-Lord jacket.
- He teams up with Nebula to steal the Embers of Genesis, a cosmic MacGuffin that can wipe out galactic hunger.
- The heist targets Taneleer Tivan, better known as the Collector, who's positioned as the big bad.
When to watch
Marvel Zombies premieres on Disney Plus on September 24.