Marvel used its Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday to drop two major casting announcements: Ryan Gosling will join the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Ghost Rider, and David Jonsson will take on the mantle of Black Panther in a third installment of the franchise, according to BBC and Variety.
The Jonsson casting came together months before the public knew anything about it. Marvel boss Kevin Feige told Empire magazine that director Ryan Coogler had already identified Jonsson as his leading man well before any formal search had begun. Coogler was deep in production on Sinners at the time, and Marvel had planned to wait until after awards season to even begin the process.
That plan changed with a single phone call. Feige recalled the moment: "A month and a half or so before that process, he called me and said, 'I found him'. I said, 'What do you mean?' He goes, 'I found him. He's this guy, David Jonsson.' He mentioned his movies. I had seen some of them. I watched more. He goes, 'I'm going to meet him.'"
What followed was an unconventional introduction. Feige explained that Coogler arranged a clandestine meeting with Jonsson before anything was official. "He had a secret meeting with him under cloak of darkness in a hotel somewhere, and called me afterwards and said, 'He's the guy, he's the guy, I felt it. I felt it in my soul. He's a good man, and he is the next Black Panther.' And I got chills, and I got a little welled-up and said, 'Let's do it'. So we've been sitting on this secret for a good five or six months."
Jonsson will play T'Challa's son in Black Panther 3, which is set to hit theaters on December 15, 2028. The film will follow Prince T'Challa II as he comes of age and steps into the Black Panther role. Original cast members Letitia Wright and Winston Duke are both returning.
The role carries significant weight in the franchise's history. After Chadwick Boseman died of colon cancer at age 43 in 2020, Wright became the first to carry the Black Panther mantle in 2022's Wakanda Forever. The original 2018 Black Panther grossed $1.3 billion worldwide and earned seven Oscar nominations, including best picture.
Gosling's Ghost Rider casting was announced alongside the Jonsson news during the same Comic-Con panel. Eva Mendes publicly reacted to the news, according to Yahoo, and IndieWire noted that both Gosling and Jonsson represent a possible shift in how Marvel approaches its properties, with the outlet asking whether the studio is finally prioritizing people over intellectual property.
The two announcements together mark one of the more consequential Comic-Con panels Marvel has staged in recent years, with both castings drawing wide attention across entertainment media.
