'Black Panther' Director Ryan Coogler Detained By Police, Mistaken For Bank Robber

"Black Panther" director Ryan Coogler was mistaken for a bank robber as he tried to take money out of his own account earlier this year, a police report has revealed.

Coogler was briefly detained and handcuffed after trying to withdraw $12,000 from a Bank of America in Atlanta, Georgia, on Jan. 7, Variety reported, citing an Atlanta police report filed Wednesday.

The 35-year-old director confirmed the incident to the outlet, saying in a statement: "This situation should never have happened. However, Bank of America worked with me and addressed it to my satisfaction, and we have moved on."

According to the police report, Coogler was wearing a hat, sunglasses and a COVID-19 face mask when he went to Bank of America to make a transaction on Jan. 7. The filmmaker handed a bank teller a withdrawal slip with a note saying he wanted $12,000 from his checking account and asking for the money to be counted somewhere else.

"I'd like to be discreet," Coogler reportedly wrote in the note.

However, the teller ⁠— who was described in the police report as a pregnant Black woman, according to TMZ ⁠— misinterpreted the situation as the amount of the transaction exceeded $10,000 and triggered an alert notification from Coogler's bank account.

The teller informed her boss that she suspected it was a robbery attempt, and they called the police.

Four officers with the Atlanta Police Department responded to the call and detained two of Coogler's colleagues, who were waiting for him outside the bank in a car with the engine running. They informed the officers who Coogler was and what he was wearing, which matched the description of the man suspected of robbing the bank.

Coogler's colleagues were detained in the back of a police vehicle, and the director was handcuffed and taken out of the bank by two of the officers.

The three were later released after police verified the director's identity and his Bank of America account.

Coogler told police he was paying for a medical assistant who worked for his family and sought discretion over safety concerns due to the cash amount he requested, The New York Times reported.

The police report noted that Coogler asked for the badge numbers of all the responding officers after he was released.

Bank of America has since issued an apology to Coogler. "We deeply regret that this incident occurred. It never should have happened and we have apologized to Mr. Coogler," a spokesperson for the bank said in a statement to Variety.

Coogler has been filming the sequel to "Black Panther" in Atlanta. The second installment of the Marvel superhero franchise is moving forward without its lead star Chadwick Boseman, who died of colon cancer at age 43 in 2020.

According to Coogler, doing the sequel without Boseman was the "hardest thing" he's ever had to do in his career.

"This is one of the more profound things that I've gone through in my life, having to be a part of keeping this project going without this particular person who is like the glue which held it together," he said on the "Jemele Hill Is Unbothered" podcast.

"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" is set for release in November.