Black Panther Director Ryan Coogler Detained After Being Mistaken for Bank Robber
Black Panther director Ryan Coogler was wrongly handcuffed by police after an attempted withdrawal from his own account was assumed to be a bank robbery. The celebrated director has been in Atlanta working on the sequel to the Marvel hit, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Prior to working the Marvel franchise, Coogler directed the 2013 film Fruitvale Station, which won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival that year. The film, which was Coogler's feature directorial debut, is based on real-life events surrounding the tragic death of Oscar Grant, an innocent Black man who was killed by BART police, and features actual footage at its opening of Grant and his friends detained by police soon before the shooting actually took place.
Coogler more recently produced the 2021 film Judas and the Black Messiah, directed by Shaka King, which similarly follows a wrongful killing of a Black man by authorities, this time based on the life of political activist and Chairman for the Black Panther Party, Fred Hampton, who was targeted and eventually killed by the FBI. After the film was released, Coogler told the BBC in an interview that the subject matter has "become more relevant with context" and that "we're still fighting the same beast, we're still fighting the same monsters, we are still fighting the same system, you know, and they haven't gone anywhere." Coogler creates and produces these stories amidst a whirlwind of political unrest surrounding police brutality and racial bias, including notably the murder of George Floyd in May of 2020 and the resulting mass protests.
Related: Why Black Panther Fans Want Marvel To Recast T'Challa For Wakanda Forever
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