Ryan Coogler’s presence in genre cinema has demonstrated the filmmaker’s knack for helming blockbuster fare, including the Black Panther franchise for Marvel Studios and Creed, an expansion of Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky universe. But it’s been a while since the director, who made his feature debut with 2013’s Fruitvale Station, did something original with his singular voice and through his riveting lens.
With news circulating that Denzel Washington is now attached to Black Panther 3, Coogler has been fielding questions about that film—and dodging them stealthily. One big reason: Coogler is eager to spend time telling another original story before jumping back to the MCU.
He explained to Deadline, “It was my realization that I had been on this path of what I could make and what I wanted to make. And realizing they had all been in the service of stories that were outside of myself.” Coogler shared, “Black Panther, that was an open directing assignment, a job I was hired for. Thankfully the studio was interested in my perspective, in my reframing, and it was four years into that fabric, bro, because of the tragedy we all endured.”
The second Black Panther film, Wakanda Forever, addressed that tragedy—the loss of star Chadwick Boseman—but moved the story forward, with T’Challa’s sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) taking on the superhero mantle.
The shared life-changing experience between the filmmaker and Black Panther‘s ensemble cast—including frequent collaborator Michael B. Jordan, who stars in Coogler’s upcoming Sinners—really put Coogler’s path in perspective.
“I looked up, and I got two kids now … and I said, bro, I’m almost 40. I got this company that can make things. I’ve engaged with audiences all over the planet, man. Who can say, at my age, that they’ve had four movies released theatrically? And yet I still haven’t really opened myself up to the audience,” Coogler shared.
“I still haven’t brought something that was just me. And how funny is it that when I say, ‘Hey, I’m making a horror movie,’ and people are surprised. But if you know me, I love those movies. If I had to reckon with the fact that the audience doesn’t truly know me. And I got scared that I would look up and be 50 and would still be in that situation. And by then, I might not have anything to say. So the movie was made because I had to make it right now.”
And Coogler is a true horror fan, as the interview explores. “I consider Spielberg’s work in the horror space to be a bit of a North Star. And it is complicated with him, right, because he hasn’t out and out made a horror movie before,” he said. “But I would classify Jaws as a creature feature horror film, and Jurassic Park as well … when you talk about those T-Rex scenes, the Velociraptor intro, the ‘raptors in the kitchen, that is out and out horror cinema. And it is popular. It is visceral. It gets the audience feeling like they’re on a damn roller coaster ride.”
And Spielberg’s not his only genre influence. “I love John Carpenter … One of my mom’s favorite Carpenter films is The Thing … I love it, the isolation, the practical effects, the cosmic horror of it, and the threat, the idea of, ‘Hey, you got to stop this thing, or it’s going to wreck the plant.’ All of a sudden, a rag tag group of guys that can’t figure out how to do a blood test, now have to save the planet.”
Clearly, Coogler is coming into horror with as much love and fandom as he had for the rest of his formative faves. I’m just glad he’s back on the big screen making a bloody vampire movie and can’t wait for its release.
Sinners opens May 18.
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