David Jonsson Is the New Black Panther: What Role Black Panther Plays in the Next Avengers Films
- Ryan Coogler announced the third Black Panther film at San Diego Comic-Con on 25 July 2026, for 15 December 2028, with David Jonsson as the new Black Panther. Letitia Wright and Winston Duke joined him on stage as Shuri and M’Baku.
- On the Avengers question, the answer is already settled and it is not Jonsson. Shuri holds the mantle in Avengers: Doomsday on 18 December 2026 — Letitia Wright is confirmed, with M’Baku and Okoye alongside her. Jonsson’s Black Panther does not exist on screen until a year after Secret Wars.
- Jonsson plays T’Challa’s son, the boy introduced in the Wakanda Forever credits scene, grown up. Coogler’s words on stage were that ‘he grows up, he comes of age’ — which requires a story jump of at least twice, and possibly close to five times, the five-year Blip.
- This is a succession, not a recast. Marvel declined to recast T’Challa after Chadwick Boseman’s death — Kevin Feige said it felt ‘much too soon’ — and the mantle has now passed twice instead, first to Shuri and now to T’Challa’s son.
The Black Panther who fights in the next Avengers film is not the one Marvel just cast. David Jonsson was introduced at San Diego Comic-Con on 25 July 2026 as the new Black Panther, in a third film Ryan Coogler will direct for 15 December 2028 — which is a year after the Avengers saga now running reaches its end.
Both things are true at once, and most of the coverage only carried the first. Here is what was actually announced, and what it means for Wakanda’s place in the films between now and then.
What did Marvel announce about Black Panther 3?
A director, a date, a new lead, and very little else.
Coogler took the Hall H stage with Letitia Wright and Winston Duke, and brought Jonsson out to a standing ovation.
| Confirmed | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director | Ryan Coogler, returning for the third film |
| New Black Panther | David Jonsson |
| Release | 15 December 2028 |
| Returning | Letitia Wright as Shuri, Winston Duke as M’Baku |
| Title | Still just Black Panther 3, its logo set in Roman numerals |
Jonsson said almost nothing about the part, deliberately: “I actually don’t want to say too much because I want to let the screen do the talking.”
Two details widely attached to the film sit outside Marvel’s own announcement post. Denzel Washington has been reported as joining — Coogler said in 2025 that he had written a part for him — and the film has been reported as shooting on large-format film rather than an all-digital pipeline. Neither appears in Marvel’s write-up of the panel, so treat them as reported rather than confirmed by the studio.
Who is David Jonsson playing?
T’Challa’s son, grown up. Coogler put it plainly on stage: “The last time we got to make a movie, we introduced a character who is the son of the character that the great Chadwick Boseman played, our T’Challa, in that film. And today, I want to tell you that in this next film, he grows up [and] he comes of age.”
That character appeared once, for about a minute, at the end of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in 2022. Shuri travels to Haiti to grieve, and Nakia introduces a small boy — Toussaint, played by Divine Love Konadu-Sun, six years old, raised away from Wakanda by agreement between his parents so he would not carry the weight of the throne. He then tells his aunt his Wakandan name: Prince T’Challa, son of King T’Challa.
One precision worth keeping. Marvel’s own announcement does not use the names Toussaint or T’Challa II — Coogler described him only as the son of the character Boseman played. The names come from the 2022 scene and from the coverage, not from anything said this week.
As for Jonsson himself: he is 32, English, RADA-trained, and came up through Industry and Rye Lane before playing the synthetic Andy in Alien: Romulus, which won him the BAFTA Rising Star Award in 2025. He has The Long Walk behind him. He is a serious dramatic actor rather than a franchise hire, which is the same instinct Coogler showed the first time.
How does a six-year-old become the lead?
By a time jump larger than anything the MCU has attempted. This is the part of the announcement that has real structural consequences, and it can be worked out from published numbers alone.
Six years and one month separate the two films in the real world. The character has to cover far more than that. Marvel has not said how old he is in the new film, so the honest figure is a range: if he is played as an 18-year-old, that is twelve years of story; if he is played at Jonsson’s own age, it is twenty-nine.
For scale, the largest time jump the MCU has actually used is the five-year Blip in Avengers: Endgame. Even the bottom of that range is more than twice it.
There are only a few ways out of this, and none of them is small: a jump forward of that size for the whole franchise, a story that isolates Wakanda from the shared timeline, or something involving the reset that Secret Wars is expected to deliver. Marvel has not indicated which. But whatever the third film does about it, the arithmetic is why the announcement matters more than a casting note usually would.
What key role will Black Panther play in the next Avengers films?
Shuri’s, not Jonsson’s. This is the cleanest answer in the whole announcement, and it comes from casting that was settled long before this week.
Avengers: Doomsday, 18 December 2026. Letitia Wright is confirmed as Shuri — she took the mantle at the end of Wakanda Forever and she keeps it here — with Winston Duke as M’Baku and Danai Gurira as Okoye. The Wakandan contingent is in the trailer, meeting the Fantastic Four. We went through the full confirmed cast in our Avengers: Doomsday trailer and cast guide .
Jonsson cannot be in that film. It shot from April to September 2025, went back for additional photography in spring 2026, and has been in post-production since. His casting was announced months after all of that.
Avengers: Secret Wars, 17 December 2027. Marvel has confirmed only a handful of roles and said nothing about Wakanda. Principal photography is due to start this summer, with reports pointing at August, so the window is technically open — but that is a statement about the calendar, not a report.
Black Panther 3, 15 December 2028. A full year after Secret Wars. Whatever Wakanda does in the Avengers films, it does with Shuri under the mask.
So the shape of it is this: the mantle passes on screen only after the current saga is finished with it. Marvel has titled exactly two films for that period — this one, and Ryan Gosling’s Ghost Rider , which is also 2028 but has been given no date at all. Black Panther 3 is the only film Marvel has both named and pinned to a day on the far side of Secret Wars. That is the entire announced foundation of what comes next.
What Wakanda actually does in an Avengers film
Worth separating from the mantle question, because the two get conflated. Wakanda’s function in the crossover films has never depended on who wears the suit: it supplies the ground, the technology and a sovereign government that negotiates rather than takes orders. Infinity War ended its battle there for exactly that reason.
Shuri’s version of the role leans on the half T’Challa carried least — she is the engineer. In a story where the threat is universes colliding, the Wakandan seat at the table is a scientific one, and the trailer pairing her with the Fantastic Four points the same way. That is a reading of a trailer, not a plot confirmation.
Is Marvel recasting T’Challa?
No, and the distinction is the point of this casting.
Chadwick Boseman died in 2020. Marvel chose not to recast the character, and Kevin Feige’s explanation at the time was that it “felt like it was much too soon to recast” — the second film was built around the loss instead, and handed the mantle to Shuri.
What has been announced now is the other option: the title moves to the next generation while T’Challa stays T’Challa. Coogler’s phrasing on stage was careful about this too, naming Boseman and describing Jonsson’s character as the son rather than as a return. A new actor is playing a new man who inherits the name, which is how the comics have always handled the Black Panther — a line, not a person.
When does Black Panther 3 come out?
15 December 2028, in theatres.
That is a firm date, unlike the 2028 films Marvel has left undated, and it puts the film in the same December slot the studio has used for both remaining Avengers releases. No plot, no further cast beyond the returning names, and no production start has been announced. Coogler has said this is his next film, so expect the pipeline to move before the details do.