As part of Marvel’s slew of movie and TV show announcements at San Diego Comic Con, a new trailer for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was released. The second entry in the series, the sequel has gone forward without main star Chadwick Boseman following his death in 2020.
Despite the actor’s sad untimely death, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is supposed to be one bit tribute to the actor. The tribute seems to be going over so well, in fact, that Boseman has even tweeted about the movie.
Chadwick Boseman promotes Black Panther sequel
Following the release of the trailer, Marvel uploaded the trailer for Wakanda Forever on Boseman’s official Twitter account. The trailer, which is obviously designed to touch on the loss of the actor, was posted in its entirety.
The solemn, soft trailer was accompanied with all-caps “WAKANDA FOREVER” tweeted by Boseman’s Twitter manager. The trailer thumbnail also has a huge mural of an in-universe memorial to the actor’s character King T’Challa.
After the tweet released, fans of the actor immediately became unsettled by the decision to promote the movie on Boseman’s account. While the account is still active, it’s usually used to promote awards given to the actor or work done by the actor’s charity. It’s not usually used to promote films he’s not in.
Fans used a number of memes to describe the situation, including a meme of Mr. Krabs from SpongeBob saying: “Am I going to defile this grace for money? Of course I am!”
Other fans simply explained their uncomfortability with using a dead man’s account to promote product. One said, “Idk using a dead man to promote a movie is kinda low but u do u Disney.” Another said “Is it just me or is there something gross about using a dead actors social media account for advertising?”
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Not the worst thing Marvel has done to a dead guy
Of course, Chadwick Boseman’s posthumous promotion of Black Panther 2 could be paid for to the actor’s family, or could be part of a pre-existing contract. While it is uncomfortable, the movie is still tied to him, unlike other promotions involving the actor.
For example, for the Oscars 2021, an NFT of Boseman’s head was heavily promoted as part of the award ceremony’s goodie bag as a way to honour the actor. The NFT ended up being a simple recolour of a stolen asset, one that the original creator wasn’t paid for.
Furthermore, this isn’t the only NFT scheme involving a Marvel icon. The face of Marvel, Stan Lee, had his Twitter account used to promote an NFT collection after his death, one based on characters he created. Many were upset.
Posthumous promotion is rabid In fact, just recently an official, verified Elvis Presley account was used to promote the recent movie about the actor. However, this type of promotion is much, much worse when it’s a Twitter account that was actually used by the person it’s about.
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