'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' star Winston Duke teases M'Baku's future after surprising ending to sequel

• Warning: There are major spoilers ahead for "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever."
• Winston Duke's M'Baku steps up in a surprising way in the sequel.

"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" plays with a lot of moving parts after the heartbreaking death of Chadwick Boseman back in 2020, and the movie addresses this in the movie's opening minutes by killing off his character, T'Challa.

In the sequel, released last week, T'Challa's sister, Shuri (Letitia Wright), struggles to deal with her grief after his passing. The young princess finds herself too wrapped up in her rage against the world and the movie's aquatic villain, Namor (Tenoch Huerta), to step up and lead Wakanda as its new queen following Queen Ramonda's death midway through the movie.

Thankfully, there's someone who's always been interested in leading the country himself: Winston Duke's M'Baku.

The end of the film sees Shuri head off to Haiti to visit Nakia (Lupita Nyong'o) and properly grieve for her brother, while M'Baku claims the title of king at the sacred waterfall from 2018's "Black Panther."

Fans will remember that the leader of the Jabari tribe tried to take the throne for himself before being defeated by T'Challa, so it'll be interesting to see what he'll actually do with the title of king. And Duke recently touched on where M'Baku's head is at by the end of the film when speaking to Esquire.

He said: "M'Baku is unapologetic. Very proud. A bit conservative."

It's obviously a surprising revelation because audiences naturally expect Shuri to become queen.

Duke also said that he's excited about the development for M'Baku, and he's already thinking about how the hero will rule the most powerful nation on the planet.

"It's kind of a shocking and, for me, very exciting moment. I get to wonder now what kind of king he will be," said the actor.

But when it comes to M'Baku's future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Duke pointed out that just because he's king, it doesn't make him the main character in the "Black Panther" franchise.

He said: "I don't like to think of it that way. I don't agree that it's in any way mine. Both 'Black Panther' movies are really defined by its ensemble. And it was forced to be defined by its ensemble. When you lose your titular character, it was then placed on the shoulders of the group to pull the story together."

Duke went on to say that the MCU is so big now that it doesn't belong to any singular actor.

The actor added: "The power of what Marvel has become is that it doesn't belong to any one actor or anyone lead or character."

"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" is in theaters now.