Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s opening weekend was one for the record books. The film earned $180 million in the US and $330 million worldwide. The movie set a new record for the biggest opening weekend for 2022. Wakanda Forever also has the distinction of being the longest non-Avengers movie in the MCU. The movie has a run time of two hours and forty-one minutes and that’s only with one post-credit scene. Nate Moore recently sat down with Collider to talk about the movie. The producer revealed that there were scenes that did not make it largely due to the length of the movie. “A lot of characters have scenes that are great scenes that the movie just couldn’t bear. It’s already a relatively long movie, and we wanted to make sure the movie felt as focused as it could, while doing as much as it’s doing. But there are some deleted scenes that are really cool. I think there’s a spectrum,” Moore said during the interview. Moore adds, “There’s some from the Director’s Cut that didn’t make it forward. There’s some that we played with for a long time, and screened, and screened multiple times. We’re notorious for tinkering a lot in editorial and trying things. Ryan, by the way, is as well. So, things are in, things are out. ‘What about this over here?’ So, some are closer to completion, some are pretty raw.” The producer detailed one particular scene involving Okoye. The commander of the Dora Milaje was chided by the Queen for the botched rescue mission for Riri Williams. “There’s certainly a scene with Okoye and Ayo after Okoye has been fired that’s really interesting. That, again, I think is incredibly watchable. It just slowed the pace down of the movie a little bit. But you get to see, Okoye react to the new General, and you get to see what she was planning to do before the events of Namor, and the Talocan coming to Wakanda happen. It’s actually pretty cool,” Moore explains. The mention of the existence of a Director’s Cut for Wakanda Forever is quite interesting. The story is often much more in-depth and detailed than the theatrical release. One good example would be Zack Snyder’s Justice League which proved quite controversial. However, the success of a film is always down to the theatrical release. The decision to cut some content may have served the movie well as evidenced by the huge opening weekend for Black Panther 2. Nate Moore did not directly confirm that a Director’s Cut would be released. We know that a four-hour Director’s Cut for the original Black Panther exists, but is something that will never be released to the public. The Director’s Cut of the sequel may have the same fate as the original. Hopefully, Marvel will decide to release a Director’s Cut for all its films down the line. It would be something worth watching given that the theatrical release is already very good. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is currently showing in cinemas worldwide.
