Despite the Captain America: Civil War mid-credits sequence being rather subdued in comparison to most Marvel Studios films, there was still an exciting moment for fans as we got our first glimpse of Wakanda, complete with an iconic Black Panther statue. While we won't see Wakanda in full until the Black Panther standalone film, directors Joe and Anthony Russo worked hard to include the tease, as it served the end of the story well, in addition to highlighting what's to come. "It was a complicated proposition for us to introduce even a bit of Wakanda with so little screen time," said Anthony. "We loved the story beat, the idea that T’Challa would get to the point where he would reach out to Cap and Bucky and offer refuge to them as a way to make amends for the fact that he had been hunting the Winter Soldier throughout the film, and making peace with what happened to his father as well. Cap lays out the stakes to T’Challa and says, “If they find out he’s here they’ll come for him,” and T’Challa says, “Let them try.” That was just a very powerful moment for us. It just spoke to how regal and tough and imposing that both Black Panther and Wakanda can be that they could challenge and defy the rest of the world like that. But it presented challenges: How to do we present Wakanda when we’re showing a small slice of it? And we just played to the ideas that are associated with Wakanda: the technological advancement, the landscape, the wealth, the hidden nature of the society that’s obscured from satellite spying and nestled into a landscape that helps hide it. That’s why we played with all the mist outside the window."
Though The Russos may have given us an early peek, it's director Ryan Coogler who will be in charge of fully introducing us to the fictional African nation in the Black Panther standalone film. The Russos took this into consideration while creating the scene, and consulted with Coogler to make sure the overall vision of Wakanda was consistent. "Marvel is turning into a bit of a United Artists where all of us are close to each other. Everybody is very respectful of one another, " said Joe Russo. "So it was important to us that Ryan Coogler, who had been hired to make the Black Panther film, really get to define what he wanted to do with that nation, what he wanted the look to be. So we met with him and his production designer and discussed it. It was important that there be some continuity between what we were doing and what he was doing." Anthony continued, "We just knew because we were handing off Wakanda at the end of the movie that it was important that that had continuity with the next film. But it’s our interpretation of the character. If you look at the movies, everyone has very different interpretations of the character. Our interpretation of Captain America is very different than Joss Whedon’s interpretation of Captain America. And I think that’s fun for the audience, like when different writers of the comic books give you very different interpretations of the characters. I think that’s valuable for keeping the Marvel universe fresh.
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