Marvel wanted Black Panther’s Wakandan people of Africa to speak with a British accent.
The studio were initially convinced that an African accent would be "too much for the audience to take in" and wanted to alter their dialect so that they spoke with an English twang, but Chadwick Boseman – who starred as T’Challa in the widely acclaimed film- fought against bosses because he felt it was important to keep the authenticity throughout.
Speaking on The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, he said: "They felt that [an African accent] was maybe too much for an audience to take. I felt the exact opposite.
"Like if I speak with a British accent, what’s gonna happen when I go home? It felt to me like a dealbreaker. Having gone through similar situations before where I was willing to, like, stand up for it I was like, well, here we go again. So for them I don’t think it was that deep, I think it was an opinion. No, this is such an important factor that if we lose this right now what else are we going to throw away for the sake of making people feel comfortable? So yes that was a huge thing — once we decided to do it, we went for it."
And it seems his perseverance paid off as ‘Black Panther’ – which features a predominantly black cast – is already considered to be one of Marvel’s biggest successes.
Boseman said previously: "As we premiered the movie in Korea, in London, after the LA premiere, we started to see how the world was going to receive it.
"We knew that a lot of black people were excited about the movie. But I think when we started to see the response overseas, that’s when I started to go, ‘Oh, wow, this is a big deal.’"
Chadwick said that the success of the film disproved some of the attitudes he’s witnesses within the movie business.
He confessed: "Studios will very often tell you that movies with a black lead are not going to work overseas.
"So I think that was the thing for me – this means something everywhere in the world.I know at that point that it could actually change how studios respond to our movies."
Chadwick Boseman fought Marvel for Black Panther’s African accents
