LOS ANGELES, CA – JANUARY 27: The cast of “Black Panther” accepts Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture onstage during the 25th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at The Shrine Auditorium on January 27, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. 480493 (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Turner)

Actress Lupita Nyong’o has taken to social media today to celebrate three years of Black Panther. Posting to Instagram, she shared a boomerang of the cast amid awards season and on Twitter shared several more photos with her co-stars. “Unforgettable. Three years since #BlackPanther. #WakandaForever,” she captioned the post.

Released in early 2018, the Marvel film follows T’Challa who is to inherit the throne of Wakanda after his father’s death. However, a powerful enemy related to his family threatens to attack his nation. The film was an immediate hit and earned $1.33 billion USD at the global box office and garnered plenty of awards season buzz. It was the first superhero film to nab a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars and proceeded to win three Academy Awards for Best Music, Best Production Design, and Best Costume Design.

Still to this day, the film is praised for its representation of Black actors, filmmakers, and production creatives. Speaking to Vanity FairNyong’o spoke on why she took the role, citing political importance.

“As I prepare, I have to articulate to myself why I’m doing this. The secondary thing is definitely the people,” she says. “When I choose projects, I want to have faith that as an artist it will speak to a time when it is needed as much as it speaks to me at the time that I make it.” She continued, “I really understood this with Black Panther, when we were making that movie in such a different political climate than the one in which it came out.”

Black Panther
Credit: Disney / Marvel

In 2017, GRAZIA exclusively spoke to Lupita Nyong’o, just under 12 months before the release of the film. But her message was, and still is more relevant than ever.

“I hope that to be African would be normalized, really, on a global level,” she told GRAZIA’s Jessica Bailey. “You know, what I would love most is the normalizing of an African experience and for it to be its authentic self.”

The anniversary also pays tribute to Boseman who played the film’s titular character. The award-winning actor was diagnosed with stage-four colon cancer in 2016 and continued to secretly fight the disease while filming. He passed away from the illness on August 28, 2020.

Black Panther Chadwick Boseman
Credit: Mike Marsland/WireImage

Black Panther also features Michael B. Jordan, Danai Gurira, Daniel Kaaluya, Angela Bassett, and Winston Duke. The film is available to stream on Disney+.