Lupita Nyong’o broke the internet simply by twirling a dress at Cannes. Imagine the crazy shit she could do in an actual superhero movie — with costumes that can actually break things.
Soon, this might be a “reality”: according to the Hollywood Reporter, Nyong’o is in negotiations to co-star in Creed writer/director Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther film, which is amassing considerable excitement after the initial disappointment of Ava DuVernay deciding not to helm the project.
If you’ve seen Captain America: Civil War, you’ve already gotten your introduction to Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa aka Black Panther (as well as a dizzying reintroduction to practically every other superhero in the Marvel cinematic universe). If you haven’t, he’s the superhero from the nonexistent African country, Wakanda, who in Civil War is aiming to avenge his father, who died in the terrorist bombing of a UN conference about the very dysfunctional state of the Avengers.
Unfortunately, the part Nyong’o could be playing hasn’t been revealed. (Nyong’o is listed, but without a given character, on the film’s IMDB page — as one of the three actors alongside Boseman and Andy Serkis.) All that’s been disclosed is that she’d be playing Black Panther’s “love interest” — though we can hope the character would be far more than that.
Vanity Fair speculated on who Nyong’o might be playing: they rule out X-Men‘s Storm, because though she is, indeed, one of Black Panther’s love interests, the cinematic universes of the two groups of superheroes are separated by their respective studios (20th Century Fox still owns X-Men). Thus, some other more likely options could be Monica Lynne (who’s from the U.S. and meets Black Panther in NYC, then moves with him to Wakanda for a while) or a member of Dora Milaje, the group of women soldiers who serve as Black Panther’s body guards. Or she could play, you know, anyone else.