Denzel Washington has hinted at joining the cast of Black Panther 3.
This was revealed during an appearance on Australia’s Today show on Monday, Nov. 11, while Denzel Washington is promoting his new movie, Gladiator II.
The actor said that Black Panther writer-director Ryan Coogler intends to create a role for him in Black Panther 3.
The 69-year-old actor is the first to talk about the existence of a third film in the Marvel blockbuster franchise.
This will follow the 2018 original and 2022 sequel ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ and has also revealed the film will be among a handful of roles he will take on before he bows out of acting after a career spanning four decades.
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During that interview, Washington also shared roles he has lined up before he bids farewell to his Hollywood career; he said,
I’m playing Hannibal. After that, I’ve been talking with Steve McQueen about a film.
He added that he also intends to star in a film adaptation of Othello and act in another Shakespeare production, King Lear, before retiring from acting.
Denzel went on to say,
“At this point in my career, I’m only interested in working with the best; I don’t know how many more films I will make, probably not that many. I want to do things that I haven’t done.”
Denzel said in response to a question by the host over whether he felt any “pressure” filming a sequel to 2000’s Gladiator, which won five Academy Awards.
“For me, it’s about the filmmaker. Especially at this point in my career, I’m only interested in working with the best.”
The 2022 sequel ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever saw Letitia Wright’s character, Shuri, taking on the Black Panther mantle; the film’s final moments also reveal that Boseman’s character, T’Challa, and Lupita Nyong’o’s Nakia welcomed a son, who is also named T’Challa.
Washington’s potential addition to the Black Panther series would mark a kind of full-circle moment for him and Boseman.
While the pair never acted on-screen together, Boseman revealed in June 2019 that Washington once “gracefully and privately” paid for him and a number of his classmates at Howard University to attend a summer acting program at Oxford University in England.
