Marvel’sEyes of Wakandaanimated spin-off anthology series will be taking viewers back to the titular nation much sooner than expected. In an exclusive conversation with Entertainment Weekly, showrunnerTodd Harrisconfirmed that all four episodes, which were originally set to premiere on August 27, will now arrive onDisney+on August 1. It’s a big shock considering the team hasn’t gotten a ton of chances to speak out about the project, and all that’s been seen so faris a short teaser. Moreover, the news is a nice update to tide fans over since Marvel decided to skipSan Diego Comic-Conthis year.
Harris has been hard at work conceivingEyes of Wakandasince back whenRyan Cooglerdebuted his firstBlack Panthermovie starring the lateChadwick Bosemanin 2018. It wasn’t until theAnnecy International Animation Film Festivalearlier this year that he finally got the chance to show off the first episode and share the vision he’d been toiling away at for years. The miniseriesexpands on the history of Coogler’s Wakanda, followingthe Hatut Zaraze, “CIA-like” warriors tasked with retrieving priceless vibranium artifacts from throughout time. Episode 1 starts far back in 1260 B.C., with each episode hopping through the locale’s mythology and history with some surprises and killer fight scenes along the time-traveling journey. All of it serves to show how the current Wakanda and Black Panther viewers are familiar with came to be.
During his interview with EW, the showrunnershed some light on the first episode, which he described as an “inciting incident” not just for the show, but all of Wakandan history. It centers on Noni (Winnie Harlow), a new candidate for the Hatut Zaraze on a mission to stop the warlord known as The Lion (Cress Williams), who plans to march on Crete with stolen Wakandan technology. The"James Bond" style missionto retrieve the artifacts is more than just a fun, historical spy thriller, but a reflection of the history of Wakanda’s formation, with some heavy inspirations for its world-changing villain:
“We always knew we needed an inciting incident. I kind of went off ofApocalypse Now. What if Wakanda turned into their Colonel? That combined with a Thulsa Doom, an Atlantian inConanwho was from a much older civilization, who created as an empire off of the existing world. So with those two themes going into it, that’s the kind of thing that would bring Wakanda into the situation where legitimate resources have to be put towards it.”
Who Will Star in ‘Eyes of Wakanda’?
In addition to Harlow and Williams,Eyes of Wakandahas assembled a stellar ensemble that also featuresAnika Noni RoseandSteve Toussaintin major roles, alongsidePatricia Belcher, Larry Herron, Adam Gold, Lynn Whitfield, Jacques Colimon, Jona Xiao, Isaac Robinson-Smith, Gary Anthony Williams, andZeke Alton. As Harris previously confirmed at the show’s Annecy panel,Iron Fist will also have a hand in this storyat some point, though itwon’t beFinn Jones’s versionof the character. Back in May, he teased a very different variant who will go head-to-head, or fist to fist, with the Wakandans. Rest assured, though, this will be more than a cameo, ingraining Iron Fist’s epic comic history into Coogler’s world and paving the way for some other surprising MCU crossovers.
“Man, I love Marvel. I can’t say too much, but when I say Iron Fist shows up, I was explaining to one of the people there, like, ‘Do you understand how amazing an Iron Fist is? An Iron Fist walked into a cave with a dragon, and he had no superpowers, and walked out with superpowers, and the dragon was dead.'”
All four episodes ofEyes of Wakandapremiere on August 1. Stay tuned here at Collider for more ahead of the show’s unexpected arrival next week.
