February sees the arrival of Marvel’s most exciting film to date. Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther returns for his very first solo outing, under the careful direction of Creed and Fruitvale Station’s Ryan Coogler. Having previously worked with Coogler on the aforementioned films, Michael B. Jordan is onboard as Black Panther’s nefarious Erik Killmonger. And it sounds like the role really got under his skin.
"It took me to a dark place," Jordan tells Empire in our brand new issue. "Honestly, I can’t really go through all I went through to get into it because I want to keep that close to me. But it stuck with me afterwards." Luckily, he "had a lot of fun on set" with co-star Chadwick Boseman. "Chadwick’s a very talented dude," Jordan continues. "There’s a lot of physical moments and action sequences throughout this film that cause us to really challenge ourselves, and also fall deeper into character." See Jordan and Boseman’s T'Challa facing-off in a particularly tense-looking scene below.
Black Panther (see our brand new subscribers’ cover right here) is undeniably one of the most exciting films to be hitting screens in 2018 – nost notably for its predominantly black cast. "It’s an all-black cast for the most part," Jordan continues, "and it’s set in Africa, but it’s universal in so many ways to everybody around the world, so I feel like it’s something that everybody can take something from."
Black Panther arrives in UK cinemas on 12 February, with US cinemas receiving it four days later. Pick up a copy of our brand new issue when it arrives in all good and evil newsagents on Thursday 28 December. Subscribe to Empire here{