Before he becomes Marvel’s new Black Panther, actor Chadwick Boseman will be playing an African King of a grittier sort. Prior to filming his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, the 42 actor will star in Message From The King as Jacob King, a South African man who travels to Los Angeles to seek vengeance for his murdered sister. And while T’challa, King of Wakanda, might use his vibranium weapons and connection to the Panther God to bring the killers to justice, we suspect King will be exacting vengeance of a more gun-toting, violent sort, in the mold of Liam Neeson—the spirit animal of all gritty revenge thriller protagonists. The film will be directed by Fabrice Du Welz, whose true-crime thriller Alleluia has been touring the film festival circuit.
Boseman will also be joining Geoffrey Rush, Gerard Butler, and Game Of Thrones’ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau for Alex Proyas’ upcoming fantasy action film Gods Of Egypt, before finally getting all of this teasing, hinting, and cameo-ing out of the way so he can star in 2017’s Black Panther film.