Marvel boss Kevin Feige recently told Empire how David Jonsson was cast as the next Black Panther. He explained that “The Long Walk” star met with “Black Panther” director Ryan Coogler in a “secret meeting” and that the Oscar winner quickly identified Jonsson as his next leading man.

“We hadn’t started a search yet,” Feige explained. “Ryan was working on ‘Sinners,’ and when Ryan works on a project, he’s all in. So we were supposed to sit down with him after ‘Sinners’ came out, after the Academy campaign. We were waiting until after the Academy Awards to sit down with Ryan and start that process.”

He added: “About a month and a half before that process, he called me and said, ‘I found it.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He says, ‘I found it.’ It’s this guy, David Jonsson. He mentioned his movies. I had seen some of them. I saw more. He says, ‘I’m going to find him.’ She had a secret meeting with him under a blanket of darkness in a hotel somewhere, and then she called me and said, ‘He’s the guy, he’s the guy, I felt it.’ I felt it in my soul. “He is a good man and he is the next Black Panther.” And I got chills, and I got a little full and said, ‘Let’s do it.’ “So we’ve been keeping this secret for five or six months.”

Jonsson will play T’Challa’s son in “Black Panther 3,” which hits theaters Dec. 15, 2028. The announcement was made during Marvel’s Hall H panel Saturday at San Diego Comic-Con. Original cast members Leticia Wright and Winston Duke return for the new chapter, which follows Prince T’Challa II as he comes of age and assumes the mantle of Black Panther.

After Chadwick Boseman died of colon cancer at age 43 in 2020, Wright was the first to take on the role of Black Panther in 2022’s “Wakanda Forever.”

Marvel launched the first “Black Panther” in 2018 to great success. It grossed $1.3 billion at the global box office and earned seven Oscar nominations, including best picture.