Talking to producer Nate Moore, Collider asked what scenes were cut from the movie, and Moore confirmed, “I think there’s a spectrum. There’s some from the Director’s Cut that didn’t make it forward. There’s some that we played with for a long time, and screened, and screened multiple times. We’re notorious for tinkering a lot in editorial and trying things.”

We don’t have a specific breakdown of scenes that were cut, but it’s said that Okoye was supposed to have the spotlight after she was removed from her position, and she would react to the Dora Milaje’s new general and figure out what she was going to do with herself moving forward.

Personally, I was kind of hoping we got more of that teased romance between Shuri and Namor, because I don’t think we’ve ever got an antagonist that was also a romantic interest of the main hero in an MCU film before.

At this point, Marvel Studios isn’t really one to release ‘Director’s Cuts’, save for Spider-Man: No Way Home, but that seemed like a Sony choice to release. Though we may not get a release of Coogler’s ‘Director’s Cut’ of Wakanda Forever, some deleted scenes could still make it to the general audience. “I don’t know that we’ll ever assemble it – I’ll never say never,” continued Moore, “I don’t think we’ll assemble it into a longer Director’s Cut. But certainly, I think there’s ways to get those scenes out there in the world without building an extended edition.”

For now, you can catch Black Panther: Wakanda Forever now in theaters.

As per scooper Daniel Richtman (via The Direct), Okoye will be given a new “same-sex relationship with another Dora Milaje in the film.” We don’t know if that is going to have any relevance with the plot, but I guess Marvel has been taking its baby steps when it comes to LGBT representation, even going so far to have a male-on-male kiss in Chloe Zhao’s Eternals.

With Chadwick Boseman’s death, the Black Panther franchise will have to lean on a lot of existing characters to push the story forward. Some have thought that Winston Duke’s M’Baku would be a good contestant as the next king of Wakanda, but some are also pointing to Shuri (Letitia Wright) to take the throne. Then again, with reports of trouble with Wright on set, fans are curious how Marvel will push forward with the IP.

As for Okoye, she has pretty much been portrayed as the right-hand woman of T’Challa, even staying connected to the Avengers after the Blip. If I had it my way, she would be the next Black Panther, but good luck trying to make sense of that in the story.

With a November 2022 release, we’re bound to get our first look at the next Black Panther film soon; hopefully sometime after the release of Multiverse of Madness. In the meantime, all we can do is wait.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is set to come out on Nov. 11, 2022.