'Black Panther 2' Cast Won't Include Chadwick Boseman's Original Best Friend

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” will be missing another Wakandan warrior when it hits theaters later this year.

British actor Daniel Kaluuya will not reprise his role as W’Kabi, the best friend and confidant to T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), in the sequel to 2018’s “Black Panther,” Variety reported.

Rotten Tomatoes’ Jacqueline Coley first revealed the news via Twitter Wednesday, saying that the Oscar winner exited the project due to conflicts with scheduling on his upcoming film “Nope,” which is directed by Jordan Peele and also stars Keke Palmer and Steven Yeun.

Adam Holmes of CinemaBlend pointed out that W’Kabi’s absence from the sequel “makes sense” because, in the first film, he supported efforts to distribute Wankandan weapons all over the world after Erik “Killmonger” Stevens (Michael B. Jordan) took over the throne.

W’Kabi may have been put in prison or banished from Wakanda following the events of the first “Black Panther” movie, he suggested.

“Wakanda Forever,” directed by Ryan Coogler, is one of the most highly anticipated films of the year and is part of Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

No specific detail about the plot of the sequel has been released. But it will focus on other Wakanda residents while also honoring Boseman’s legacy following his death over two years ago.

Production on the superhero flick ended in March. The film will premiere on Nov. 11.

The cast includes Letitia Wright (Shuri), Lupita Nyong’o (Nakia), Danai Gurira (Okoye), Martin Freeman (Everett K. Ross), Winston Duke (M’Baku) and Angela Bassett (Ramona).

The movie will introduce a new Marvel hero named Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), also known as Ironheart. It will be her first appearance ahead of her own Disney+ series that was announced in December 2020.

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige spoke to Comicbook.com about the character in 2021, saying: “We're shooting 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,' right now, and the character of Riri Williams, you will meet in 'Black Panther 2' first. She started shooting, I think, this week before her 'Ironheart' series.”

Fans can still catch Kaluuya in “Nope,” which centers on an isolated town in California experiencing mysterious events possibly caused by a UFO invasion. It will premiere on July 22.