With completely unsurprising inevitability, F Gary Gray - the man behind the very good (but slightly sycophantic) Straight Outta Compton - is big business at the minute. On the back of that film's summer winning success and a near $200m haul from a $28m budget, he's apparently being considered for not only Fast & Furious 8 but also Black Panther. The news comes from Variety who slipped the MCU possibility in a post about the Fast & Furious hiring. In their terms, he's only one of the contenders, but it all becomes a lot more pertinent when you consider that he was once a fore-runner for Captain America; Civil War before the Russos came in and blew it out of the water Back then, Gary Gray dropped out of the running to concentrate on Straight Outta Compton, which was a smart move for his profile. Not that The Winter Soldier wouldn't have been, but the Russos did so well with that movie that it's almost inconceivable that anyone else could have done it. Selmas Ava DuVernay had been under consideration, but she apparently turned it down because it really wasnt going to be an Ava DuVernay film. That hasn't stopped any of the other left-field choices (including the Russos in fact), and Gary Gray himself would also be as unexpected a hire as DuVernay based solely on his body of work. The director also has Last Friday on his slate, which is set for release in 2016, but beyond that he's free, which is why he's being linked with two major franchise films. After Straight Outta Compton, he has the luxury of choice. Black Panther also has a writer: The Wrap are also reporting that Joe Robert Cole - one of Marvel's in-house writing team - is in line for the job, to go alongside his gig writing Inhumans. So far, all we know about Black Panther is that it will star Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa and probably Andy Serkis as villain Ulysses Klaue (presumably with a new arm after Ultron got rid of the original). Beyond that, rumours fill the gaps - Black Panther's father will almost certainly be dead (probably by The Winter Soldier's hand, hence his pursuit of Bucky in Civil War), Klaue will probably be on the trail of Vibranium and it will probably be set in Wakanda. Do you think F Gary Gray is the right choice for the job? Sound off in the comics thread below.
