Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige has given fuller details on how David Jonsson was cast as the new Black Panther, revealing that director Ryan Coogler identified him before an official search had even begun and held a covert hotel meeting with the actor to confirm the decision. Speaking to Empire after Marvel's San Diego Comic-Con Hall H panel, Feige said Marvel had intended to start searching for an actor only after Coogler finished promoting his film Sinners and its awards campaign, but Coogler called roughly a month and a half earlier to say he had already found his man.

Feige described Coogler holding a "secret meeting… under cloak of darkness in a hotel somewhere" with Jonsson before phoning back convinced he was "the guy," prompting Feige to approve the casting on the spot, visibly moved. The pair have kept the decision under wraps for around five or six months. Jonsson, a British actor known for Alien: Romulus and The Long Walk, will appear alongside Letitia Wright's Shuri and Winston Duke's M'Baku when Black Panther 3 opens on 15 December 2028.