Selma's Ava DuVernay tipped to direct Marvel's Black Panther
Ava DuVernay, the director of acclaimed civil-rights drama Selma, is being courted by Marvel to take charge of a high-profile superhero movie. The Wrap reports DuVernay is being lined up for either Black Panther, the companys first attempt at a film headlined by an African American comic-book titan, or Captain Marvel, expected to be the studios first female-fronted superhero epic.
Black Panther, which will debut in July 2018, is the most likely project, according to the respected Hollywood trade sites sources. The print version, the first black superhero in mainstream comics, is the superpowered ruler of the fictional African nation of Wakanda. He is considered a genius one of the eight cleverest people on Earth and has access to vast financial resources, thanks to his nations huge reserves of the fictional substance Vibranium.
Chadwick Boseman will play a younger Black Panther who takes on the mantle following the death of his father in the forthcoming big-screen version. DuVernay would become Marvels first African American director, and first female director, though the company had initially hired Monsters Patty Jenkins to direct Thor: The Dark World before later dispensing with her services.
The film-makers absence from the list of 2015 Oscar nominees for best director was one of the biggest controversies of the awards season. Selma did pick up a best picture nomination, and was rewarded with the best song prize, but critics lamented the Martin Luther King biopics absence from a number of other high-profile categories.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/13/ava-duvernay-marvel-direct-black-panther-selma