I was 30, convinced that the movie wasn't going to work: Ryan Coogler on 'Black Panther'

If there is anything that ''Sinners'' director Ryan Coogler has learned from his 2018 blockbuster superhero drama ''Black Panther'' and its late star Chadwick Boseman, it is to stay more present in the moment. Coogler's ''Sinners'' recently became the most nominated film in the Oscars history by earning 16 nods for the 2026 edition. The record was earlier shared by ''All About Eve'' (1950), ''Titanic'' (1997) and ''La La Land'' (2016) as they all had 14 nominations each. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Coogler spoke about the lessons he learned from Boseman, the ''Black Panther'' star who passed away in 2020 after a secret four-year battle with cancer. He was 43. ''Engaging with him on an artistic level, conversations that will forever just be between me and him - I was about 30 years old, stressed, completely out of my mind, sleep-deprived, convinced that the movie wasn't going to work,'' Coogler said. ''I robbed myself of truly enjoying that privilege - even of sitting there and enjoying the countless Chadwick Boseman takes, because he didn't have a bad take. So when he passed, I'm like, 'Oh my God, how much stuff have I not allowed myself to enjoy because I was in my own head - feeling like I was unworthy?' ''I'm going to take the lessons from Chad for the rest of my life, bro. That includes all of this. I have to see the good in things, see the value in things, and not let impostor syndrome or guilt or negativity rob me of moments with my cast who I love - or with folks who want to say, 'Hey, good job.''' Coogler was in his mid-20s when he impressed Hollywood with his directorial debut ''Fruitvale Station'', which revolved around the real-life events leading up to the 2009 death of 22-year-old Oscar Grant in police firing. His second project was ''Creed'', a spin-off to Sylvester Stallone's ''Rocky'' franchise. ''Black Panther'', which amassed USD 1.35 billion worldwide, was praised for the way it honoured the black culture and history through the story of a king who rules a technologically advanced African country, hidden from the world. Coogler was deep into the making the sequel when the pandemic hit and they all learned about Boseman's death. The filmmaker had to rewrite the story in a way that honoured Boseman's legacy but continued the story without him. ''Wakanda Forever'', which initially seemed like an easy continuation of the world shown in ''Black Panther'', had to be reframed completely with Boseman's T'Challa dying at the beginning of the film. ''I would look around to people who had been making movies as long as I had been alive, bro, sometimes longer, and they would say: 'I've never seen anything like this,''' Coogler said about the time. ''We had to work from the place of being brokenhearted, or else it wouldn't have got done. … Me and Chad were getting closer, so it was like a wound to the heart. It was like somebody had taken the sun away and we were all these planets floating.'' The filmmaker looks back at the time with sadness and also pride. ''I learned that I was more resilient than I give myself credit for - I'll say that was the biggest thing... And that movie gets watched at home so much more than the other Panther did. I think about that: People may be watching when they want to feel something specific.'' ''Sinners'', his first movie since his debut to have no IP connection, was inspired by Coogler's great-uncle James Edmonson, who died in 2015. A genre-bending story that combines Black history, Blues music, Jim Crow South, cultural appropriation and vampires, ''Sinners'' released last year at a time when Warner Bros films were not doing well and uncertainty surrounded the future of Warners film heads Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy. But the film released and became an instant hit with both critics and at the box office. Coogler said he was not worried about the negativity and doubt surrounding the release of ''Sinners'' ''I admired Mike and Pam and what they were doing, so I didn't mind that our film was the one coming at a time when they needed something to work - I actually liked that. I liked the opportunity to show up for a philosophy that I believed in: bravery, creativity, theatrical. I was happy that it was 'Sinners', where people were talking about: 'Is this going to work or not?'''