Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is currently shooting and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has revealed that the much-anticipated sequel will also serve as an introduction to Riri Williams, the genius inventor and creator of the most advanced suit of armor since Iron Man.
It was announced last year that Dominique Thorne would be playing Riri Williams in Ironheart, an upcoming Marvel series for Disney+, but we’ll be seeing her next year in the Black Panther sequel. “We’re shooting Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, right now, and the character of Riri Williams, you will meet in Black Panther 2 first,” Kevin Feige said via ComicBook.com. “She started shooting, I think, this week before her Ironheart series.“
Riri Williams was created by Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Deodato back in 2016 and was introduced as a 15-year-old MIT student who managed to reverse engineer Iron Man’s armor to create her own and caught the attention of Tony Stark himself. Chinaka Hodge will serve as head writer on the six-episode Ironheart series. Hodge has previously penned episodes of Snowpiercer and Amazing Stories, but she’s also a poet and playwright known for For Girls with Hips: Collected Poems and Writings, Dated Emcees, Chasing Mehserle, and Mirrors in Every Corner.
Ryan Coogler will once again be directing Black Panther: Wakanda Forever from a screenplay he co-wrote with Joe Robert Cole, and the film is slated for a July 8, 2022 release. It’s not known just when Ironheart will debut on Disney+, but it’s nice to know we’ll get to see Riri Williams just a little sooner than expected.