Michael B. Jordan Backs David Jonsson as the Next Black Panther: "I Love It. I Can't Wait!"

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2026 — The man who once tried to take Wakanda's throne has spoken, and he is thrilled about who sits on it next. Speaking to Entertainment Tonight at the Spider-Man: Brand New Day premiere in Los Angeles, Michael B. Jordan — Erik Killmonger himself — was asked about David Jonsson stepping into Black Panther 3. His answer was pure electricity: "Oh, I love it. It's amazing! I can't wait, can't wait!"

It matters who this particular blessing comes from. Jordan's Killmonger wasn't just a villain — he was the franchise's moral earthquake, the character whose questions about Wakanda's place in the world still hang over every film in the saga. He returned briefly in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and he shares one of the closest creative partnerships in modern Hollywood with director Ryan Coogler. When Jordan says he can't wait, it carries the weight of someone who understands exactly what the mantle demands.

Who is David Jonsson?

For casual fans, Jonsson's name may have arrived out of nowhere — but his résumé says otherwise. The 32-year-old, RADA-trained British actor won the BAFTA Rising Star Award for his performance in Alien: Romulus, broke out in Rye Lane, held a main part across the first two seasons of HBO's Industry, and starred in Stephen King's The Long Walk. He's the kind of actor casting directors fight over: technically exact, quietly magnetic, and — as Marvel's long-serving casting director Sarah Finn told Variety — built for a role like this. "He has a lot of talent and a whole lot of heart," Finn said. "Obviously, these are very big shoes to fill. He is the grown version of T'Challa's son, and the heir apparent. We needed somebody not only with the talent, but with a certain presence and a certain spirit."

He's already doing the work. In September, Jonsson — who turned 33 that month — shared glimpses of his physical training on Instagram: hiking shirtless up a steep hill, gentle morning stretches, the steady grind of a man preparing to wear the suit. "Took the rear view out, gave it gas," he wrote. "Happy fall y'all."

The secret meeting that cast a king

The announcement, delivered on Marvel Studios' Hall H stage at San Diego Comic-Con on July 25, 2026, was one of the weekend's defining moments. Coogler took the stage alongside Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and revealed Jonsson as the adult Prince T'Challa II — legal name Toussaint — to a standing ovation. Jonsson, visibly emotional with his hand to his chest, thanked the room and then stopped himself: "I actually don't want to say too much because I want to let the screen do the talking. But believe me, the honor is entirely mine."

What the crowd didn't know was how long the secret had been kept. Feige later told Empire that Coogler had found his man in a clandestine meeting months earlier, while finishing work on Sinners. "A month and a half or so before that process, he called me and said, 'I found him,'" Feige recalled. "'He's this guy, David Jonsson.' He had a secret meeting with him under cloak of darkness in a hotel somewhere, and called me afterwards and said, 'He's the guy, he's the guy, I felt it. I felt it in my soul. He's a good man, and he is the next Black Panther.'" Feige's own reaction: "I got chills, and I got a little welled-up and said, 'Let's do it.' So we've been sitting on this secret for a good five or six months."

What we know about the movie

Marvel has dated Black Panther 3 for theatrical release on December 15, 2028, and Coogler is promising an experience the MCU has never attempted: the film will be shot entirely on large-format celluloid film, reportedly 70mm — a first for Marvel, and a swing built for IMAX. It will follow Avengers: Secret Wars (due May 2028), with filming expected to begin in 2027.

The story picks up the thread left at the end of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. In that film's mid-credits scene, Nakia (Lupita Nyong'o) revealed that she and T'Challa had secretly raised a son before his death — and that his name, Toussaint, honors a Haitian revolutionary hero. The threequel follows that child, now grown, as he comes of age and steps toward the throne. This is the crucial distinction the franchise has been careful to protect: Jonsson is not recasting Chadwick Boseman's T'Challa. He is playing the next generation — a character audiences have known since the moment he was introduced, continuing Boseman's line rather than replacing it. One persistent rumor — insider Daniel Richtman has claimed Jonsson could make his MCU debut in Avengers: Secret Wars — remains unconfirmed by Marvel.

The cast around him

Jonsson won't carry Wakanda alone. Letitia Wright (Shuri) and Winston Duke (M'Baku) are both confirmed to return. And in one of the most electric casting stories of the year, Denzel Washington has joined the film in a role that hasn't been publicly detailed — one that Coogler says was written specifically for him. Speaking on the June 5 episode of the 7PM in Brooklyn podcast with Carmelo Anthony, Coogler explained: "Denzel is family at this point... I think he's the greatest living actor, and in terms of what he means to our culture, forget about it. I've been talking to him about this for a long time." Washington had let the news slip himself on Australia's Today Show late last year, then personally called Coogler to apologize for jumping the gun.

And then there's the royal blessing that rivals Jordan's. Angela Bassett — Queen Ramonda, whose Wakanda Forever performance made history as the first in a Marvel film to earn an Oscar nomination — was asked about Jonsson's casting on the red carpet for American Horror Story: 13. "Ooh, come on with it! I cannot wait. I was so over the moon to hear that, as a fan. I know the fans were happy as well. It's exciting!" she told Screen Rant. Asked whether Jonsson has her approval, she didn't hesitate: "Yes, he does!"

A sacred place in the culture

This is what makes Jordan's reaction land so hard. Black Panther is not just a successful franchise — it's a cultural landmark. The 2018 film was the first superhero movie led by a Black hero to reach this scale, a global event that turned a comic-book premiere into a celebration of Black pride, fashion, and identity. Then Chadwick Boseman died of colon cancer in August 2020, at 43, while Coogler was still developing the sequel. The studio faced an impossible question — and answered it with grace: no recast, a sequel that centered grief and legacy, Shuri taking up the mantle in the interim, and the son revealed quietly at the very end, waiting for his moment.

That moment is now. A hero who was a child when his father died, raised away from the pressure of the throne, now grown and coming of age in a Wakanda still shaped by loss. It is a passing of the torch written into the fiction and the real world at once — and the franchise's greatest villain giving it his blessing, in public, at a premiere, is the kind of full-circle moment you can't manufacture. "Oh, I love it. It's amazing! I can't wait, can't wait!" From Killmonger, that sounds like the future.

Jordan is building an empire of his own

Off-screen, Jordan's slate keeps getting heavier. The first poster for his Thomas Crown Affair remake has arrived — Jordan front and center, tagline "Revenge is a work of art," dated March 5, 2027 for theaters and IMAX — one of his biggest directing swings yet. And Prime Video has dropped the first teaser for The Greatest, Jordan's Muhammad Ali biopic series, confirming its eight-episode run begins November 4. Between the heist movie and the boxing drama, the man who lost Wakanda's throne is busy building his own kingdom.

Our film coverage will be tracking Black Panther 3 from filming through release, and the culture desk has more on the stories shaping the moment.