The film was directed by Ryan Coogler, who co-wrote the screenplay with Joe Robert Cole, and it stars Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa / Black Panther alongside Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Sterling K. Brown, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, and Andy Serkis.

In Black Panther, T'Challa is crowned king of Wakanda following his father's death, but he is challenged by Killmonger (Jordan), who plans to abandon the country's isolationist policies and begin a global revolution.

He and Okoye, leader of the Dora Milaje, extract T'Challa's ex-lover Nakia from an undercover assignment so she can attend his coronation ceremony with his mother Ramonda and younger sister Shuri.

[49][50] Marija Abney, Janeshia Adams-Ginyard, Maria Hippolyte, Marie Mouroum, Jénel Stevens, Zola Williams, Christine Hollingsworth, and Shaunette Renée Wilson also play Doras.

[92] By early July, DuVernay had passed on directing the film,[93] explaining that she had been drawn to the cultural importance of depicting a Black hero to the whole world, but disagreed with Marvel on the story and did not want to compromise her vision.

[107] He added that the film would be the first Marvel Studios production to feature a "primarily African-American cast":[108][109] Lupita Nyong'o soon entered negotiations to star as T'Challa's love interest,[27] and Michael B. Jordan joined in an undisclosed role, after previously working with Coogler on Fruitvale Station and Creed.

[117] Moore noted that an early script had more scenes outside of Wakanda to explore "what it means to be African and African-American in the world a bit more", and hoped these could be revisited in a later film, particularly a "super cool" sequence that was storyboarded before being cut.

The Wakandan vehicles include a maglev train for carrying vibranium; the king's Royal Talon Fighter, which looks like a mask from the top and bottom; and the Dragon Flyer, inspired by the Congo peafowl.

[136] Marvel announced that production was underway on January 26, and confirmed the casting of Freeman, Wright, and John Kani, while revealing that Andy Serkis would reprise his role as Ulysses Klaue from Avengers: Age of Ultron.

[154] As first hinted by Coogler in January 2018,[122] the film includes two post-credit scenes: one showing T'Challa address the United Nations; and one featuring Sebastian Stan reprising his role as Bucky Barnes.

[156] Coogler originally pitched a post-credits scene teasing Namor, which would have depicted wet footprints leading to the throne in the Wakandan palace;[158] this did not occur in part because of rights issues with the character.

For the Warrior Falls environment, the amphitheater-like cliff walls had to be populated with digital spectators that could not simply be copy-and-pasted around the set due to the precise costume designs created by Carter for each tribe and character.

[179] The trailer received a much more positive response, with Peter Sciretta of /Film finding it unexpected and refreshing,[182] io9's Charles Pulliam-Moore calling it "every bit as intense as you were hoping it would be",[183] and Andrew Husband for Uproxx feeling the single teaser outshone the entire Homecoming marketing campaign.

[180] It was viewed 89 million times in 24 hours, generating 349,000 mentions (second only to the amount the Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) teaser received) and "dominated the conversation on social media" over Game 4.

[189] In September, Coogler, Gurira, and Moore participated in a panel at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Annual Legislative Conference, where exclusive footage from the film was also shown and met with a positive response.

[191] Writing for Rolling Stone, Tre Johnson felt the trailer showed T'Challa as "someone with the arrogance of [John] Shaft, the coolness of [Barack] Obama and the hot-headed impulsiveness of Kanye West".

[202] Other marketing partners included shoe manufacturer Clarks creating a film-inspired variant of their Originals' Trigenic Evo shoe;[203] PepsiCo and Unilever launching an arts program for young people in urban areas to be mentored by established artists; Brisk created an interactive Black Panther installation at the 2018 NBA All-Star Game; Lancôme highlighted a line of makeup that Nyong'o and Wright used at the film's premiere; and Synchrony Financial with Marvel awarded the Ghetto Film School Fellows program with a $50,000 grant, with Coogler speaking to the school's students.

[234] Deadline Hollywood calculated the film's net profit as $476.8 million, accounting for production budgets, marketing, talent participations, and other costs; box office grosses and home media revenues placed it second on their list of 2018's "Most Valuable Blockbusters".

[250] In July 2020, due to the worldwide closure of cinemas during the COVID-19 pandemic and limits on which films played, Black Panther returned to 421 theaters—mostly drive-ins—and grossed $367,000, the second-highest for the weekend behind The Empire Strikes Back's (1980) re-release.

The website's critical consensus reads, "Black Panther elevates superhero cinema to thrilling new heights while telling one of the MCU's most absorbing stories—and introducing some of its most fully realized characters.

[282] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called it unlike any other Marvel film, "an exhilarating triumph on every level from writing, directing, acting, production design, costumes, music, special effects to you name it".

[287] Richard Roeper, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, said audiences should watch the film if they appreciate "finely honed storytelling with a Shakespearean core; winning performances from an enormously talented ensemble; provocative premises touching on isolationism, revolution and cultures of oppression, and oh yeah, tons of whiz-bang action sequences and good humor".

[281] Brian Truitt of USA Today stated, "While the themes are deep, Black Panther is at the same time a visual joy to behold, with confident quirkiness, insane action sequences and special effects, and the glorious reveal of Wakanda".

"[292] Historian Nathan D. B. Connolly said Black Panther was "a powerful fictional analogy for real-life struggles" that taps into a "500-year history of African-descended people imagining freedom, land and national autonomy."

[296] Faisal Kutty from Middle East Eye felt the film had underlying Islamophobic themes, with the only Islamic characters being a Boko Haram-based group that kidnapped several girls and forced them to wear hijab.

[250] In early January 2018, philanthropist Frederick Joseph created a GoFundMe drive to raise money for children of color at the Boys & Girls Club in Harlem to see Black Panther.

[202] Many celebrities offered their support and contributions to the drives,[302] including Ellen DeGeneres, Snoop Dogg, Chelsea Clinton, J. J. Abrams,[303] Octavia Spencer,[305] and British actress Jade Anouka.

[307] Dwayne Wong (Omowale) writing in HuffPost saw the film and its comic origins as addressing "serious political issues concerning Africa's relationship to the West that is very rarely given the serious attention that it deserves", with Wakandans portrayed as suspicious towards outsiders.

Gathara highlighted the Africa that is portrayed, still essentially a European creation, as being divided and tribalized, with Wakanda run by a wealthy and feuding elite that despite its advanced technical abilities does not have a means of succession beyond lethal combat.

Lebron felt that T'Challa could have shown himself a good person by understanding how Killmonger was affected by American racism and T'Chaka's "cruelty", and could have agreed that justice sometimes requires violence as a last resort against oppression.