African-American director Ryan Coogler said Thursday he “never imagined” living long enough to make his groundbreaking superhero smash-hit Black Panther, having grown up in one of the most violent cities in the US.
In Oakland, “death is constantly around us to the point where we are comfortable with it,” the star filmmaker — who celebrates his 32nd birthday this month — said at the film festival in Cannes where he received a standing ovation.
“When I turned 30, I almost had a crisis because I never imagined myself being that age… 25 is the magic number — you’re either dead or in jail by that time.
“I saw a lot of evidence of good people who didn’t make it past that age, whether they went to prison or got murdered,” he told a packed audience, which included Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck whose documentary I’m not Your Negro was nominated for an Oscar last year.
Coogler’s blockbuster features an almost exclusively black cast led by actor Chadwick Boseman as the first non-white superhero to get his own standalone movie.
The Marvel action blockbuster — which was screened on the beach in Cannes this week — has already earned over a billion dollars at the global box office, making it one of top 10 highest grossing films of all time.
“I grew tired of reading comic books about white superheroes and the black people stood just on the side,” said Coogler of Boseman’s character who rules over the fictional African nation of Wakanda.