Set photos from Marvel Studios' Black Panther: Wakanda Forever offer a first look at Dominque Thorne's Riri Williams, the eventual Ironheart.The photos were taken at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA and feature Thorne sporting civilian attire as she walks around the campus with a backpack in tow. The Black Panther sequel is currently filming at MIT, and it's notably where Riri went to school in the comics.
"We're shooting Black Panther: Wakanda Forever right now, and the character of Riri Williams, you will meet in Black Panther 2 first," Marvel Studios President/Marvel Chief Creative Officer Kevin Feige recently confirmed. "She started shooting, I think, this week before her Ironheart series."
Created by Brian Michael Bendis, Mike Deodato, Eve Ewing, and Kevin Libranda, Riri Williams debuted in 2016's Invincible Iron Man #7. The character is a 15-year-old teenage genius who uses her immense intelligence to reverse-engineer Tony Stark's armor, eventually taking up the moniker of Ironheart. She would factor heavily into the post-Civil War II Marvel Universe, appearing in such titles as Secret Empire, Champions and the "Iron Man 2020" arc. For a period of time, she was also mentored by an artificial intelligence version of Tony.
"I was so shocked, in fact, that there was a considerable lag in the conversation!" Thorne said in March while discussing being cast as Riri. "I was waiting for them to say, like, 'Oh, we'll send you the sides,' or, 'Get your tape over to us.' But there was none of that. It was just like, 'Would you like to do this?' It was probably the most unique experience I've ever had because there was no audition at all."
Following Wakanda Forever, Riri will headline her own Disney+ series, the aptly titled Ironheart, with Snowpiercer's Chinaka Hodge serving as the show's head writer. Rumors of the show date back to May 2020, but it was officially confirmed by Marvel Studios in December during the Dinsey Investor Day presentation. The character of Ironheart has previously appeared in such projects as Marvel Rising: Heart of Iron and Marvel's Spider-Man (voiced by Sofia Wyle).