Denzel Washington Reveals That He's Starring In The Next Black Panther

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WGN - While Marvel hasn’t officially confirmed another “Black Panther” movie, Denzel Washington revealed he’s going to be a part of the project. 

“For me, it’s about the filmmakers. Especially, at this point in my career, I am only interested in working with the best. I don’t know how many more films I’m going to make,” he explained. “It’s probably not that many. I want to do things I haven’t done.”

…After that, Ryan Coogler is writing a part for me in the next ‘Black Panther.’”

This is awesome news for the following reasons: 

1. Denzel Washington is one of the greatest actors of my lifetime. Everything he makes hits just right and that's coming from a guy who just got sucked into Equalizer 3. There's literally no bad tape on this guy. Maybe the easiest actor to love and celebrate of ALL TIME. Everything he touches turns to gold and I can't wait to see his natural character traits emerge amidst the backdrop of Wakanda. 

That's it. That's the only reason I need to use to explain why this is awesome. It's because Denzel is so fucking good. Any extra consideration here would be so meaningless. The reason it's awesome is because Denzel rocks. 

More important, he has to play a bad guy, right? I think that's when Denzel shines brightest. 

He's only done it 6 times already: Training Day, American Gangster, MacBeth, Safe House (UNDERRATED), John Q. (UNDERRATED) and The Little Things (APPROPRIATELY RATED). 

Including Gladiator 2, it's obvious Denzel is trending towards a villain arc in the 4th quarter of his career. And honestly that's really important because I think we're running out of bad guys. 

Hear me out. 

I grew up in a world where you could kill an unlimited amount of Germans onscreen. For a brief time that extended to all Soviets and most parts of Somalia. 

Point is you had identity to your bad guys and with it came powerful, outstanding actors like Christopher Lee and Jeremy Irons and Alan Rickman. There was structure to support the creativity and artistic interpretations. Or some powerful shit actors say when they let their guard down and talk about the role. 

I'm motivated to redefine the way society engages with evil as a substantive subject matter

All the bad guys are dying in real life leading to a tenfold increase in masked, rogue, government operative onscreen deaths. Mission Impossible. Dune. Most of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy involved frivolous villainous deaths and that was two decades ago. 

My point is that Denzel going to Black Panther could represent a permanent seismic shift in the landscape of movie bad guys. Like when Hulk Hogan went to WCW and turned full hell. Or maybe when John Smoltz converted from a HOF starter to a HOF closer. You really get a full look at the performer's range and I think that's what we could have here with Denzel. 

My only big hesitation is that they use him for an Origin story. That would suck because I'm sick and tired of Origin stories. Enough is enough. We get one Breaking Bad and one Prison Break per lifetime and that's it.

So if Denzel is out here hand crafting the original Black Panther suit himself, I might have some second questions. But career trajectory mixed with current inventory of emerging villains suggests there's a huge opportunity for Denzel to be a great bad guy. So hopefully that's what they do otherwise I might complain and be disappointed.