I’ve been avoiding this all afternoon/evening, but it continues to follow me everywhere (readers emailing it to me, as well as posts on my Twitter and Facebook feeds). So I’m just going to, at least, mention it, and you guys can feel free to run with it or not.

In short, fanboys and fangirls are all abuzz over a Facebook and Twitter post Morris Chestnut is said to have made on both social media sites earlier today: he posted the below cover of an issue of the Black Panther comic book, along with the words:

It’s time to get familiar with the Black Panther character.

It didn’t take long for speculation to begin, as several film and comic book sites picked up Chestnut’s posts, and ran with the speculation, wondering whether he was hinting that he would be playing the character in a movie, or was maybe screen-testing for it, which would mean that Marvel was moving forward with a Black Panther movie finally, etc, etc, etc…

Chestnut has since deleted both the Twitter and Facebook posts, so, unfortunately, you can’t see them for yourselves, nor read the comment threads that followed. Of course, some question why he would have deleted the posts if there wasn’t something more to them than what he wrote.

I should also note that Chestnut hasn’t posted anything since he deleted both posts. He likely deleted them in the first place because of all the speculation that followed. So, some would argue that if none of it was true, he’d have posted a follow-up message saying just that. Surely he was aware that by posting something so vague, yet suggestive, especially as public discussions are being had about a Black Panther movie, he would’ve known what kind of a stir he could/would create.

I don’t know folks. It all could mean a number of things, or nothing at all. And all the speculation could be needless. I’m just shrugging at it all.

Would Marvel really cast Morris Chestnut as Black Panther? It doesn’t immediately make a lot of sense to me. I can’t *see* it. Even a screen-test. I especially can’t *hear* it (the accent). Then again, when it comes to black characters in Marvel movies, the studio’s record hasn’t exactly been all that great. Sometimes I wonder if the only casting criteria that matters on the casting call sheet is that the characters are black.

We’ve already talked about the potential for a Black Panther movie to death, and, as I said in a previous post, I’ve pretty much given up expecting one to happen anytime soon, if at all. Marvel will probably explore every other superhero in its library on film, before we see standalone movies with any of its key black superheroes. Or they’ll be supporting/peripheral characters in movies about other non-Black Marvel superheroes. 

If they really wanted to make one, given how much lip-service has been given to the possibility over the years, I’d think that they would have done so by now.

Here’s the comic book cover/post that Chestnut posted today; feel free to read into it as much as you want, or not at all.