WRITING ‘BLACK PANTHER’

Joe Robert Cole on his teamup with Ryan Coogler.

Ibelieve it was the summer of 2013 that I went to check out a movie with my friend and colleague Nate Moore (executive producer of “Black Panther”). We settled into our cushy West L.A. seats along with a writer buddy of ours and within five minutes, I turned and said, “This movie’s going to make me cry.” The movie was “Fruitvale Station.” And it did. Not only do I have a soft spot in my heart for the Bay Area, but I am drawn to and moved by stories that make an earnest effort to explore our humanity.

During my time in the Marvel Writers Program working with Nate, I learned of his love of Black Panther and his desire to see the character on the big screen. For my own reasons, I hoped privately to one day write the movie. Growing up, I didn’t own a single comic. Prior to the program, I didn’t know Black Panther existed.

As an only child who kept busy playing make-believe, I remember longing for a

hero in my own image to pretend to be. Without one, I shifted a few things around. Instead of Batman, I was Blackman. Instead of James Bond, I was James Black. My Superman suit was black. I loved ninjas because they wore black. My heroes and villains existed in a world familiar to me. They spoke and behaved like the people I knew. And they were just as heroic and complex and as flawed as the heroes

and villains that I watched on TV and in the movies. They felt real.

Fast-forward to the set of “American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson,” where I quietly worked on my Black Panther pitch while supervising one of my episodes. I barely told anyone about it — even after I had won the job. It felt personal. A few weeks later, Nate called. The studio was in discussions with a filmmaker

who’d expressed a desire to cowrite the movie. I’ve been asked, on occasion, if I was apprehensive or disappointed as I had never professionally written with anyone before. I wasn’t. The first thing that entered my mind was “Fruitvale Station” and how the humanity of that film had touched me. The writer-director was Ryan Coogler.

Ryan and I entered our arranged mar-