10 Actors Who Could Be The Breakout Stars Of 2018

You Know Him From:

Possibly from his energetic and magnetic performance as James Brown in the otherwise middling-received biopic Get On Up. Or, more likely, from his supporting turn as African prince T'Challa assuming the Black Panther mantle in all-star hero-versus-hero clash Captain America: Civil War.

In 2018:

Returning as Black Panther both by headlining his own movie and by taking a significant role within massive crossover event Avengers: Infinity War, a film that looks set to be not just the biggest of 2018, but probably the biggest superhero event movie of them all.

Get On Up only just broke even at the box office, his only 2017 movie, Marshall, lost money and disappeared without a trace, and Boseman's first attempt at blockbuster success was in the notoriously disastrous Gods Of Egypt, but his obvious charisma and leading man presence have had him tipped for big things for the past few years. We got a glimpse of what he could do in his first appearance as Black Panther in Civil War, but it feels like 2018 is the year for both actor and character.

Of course, just as there were on-screen super women before Gal Gadot and Wonder Woman made a big step forward for female superheroes last year, there have been previous black superheroes. Wesley Snipes' Blade arguably kicked off both the whole twenty-first century superhero boom and the idea that films of Marvel characters could be a success. There are even plenty of black heroes in the MCU, such as Avengers War Machine and Falcon. But there has never been anything led by a black hero with a predominantly black cast and crew on this scale.

Just as with Gadot last year, this places a lot of weight on Boseman's shoulders to prove, in the first MCU film not centred around a white man, that superhero movies can be more diverse. And, as with Gadot last year, Boseman has the talent to make it happen.