'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' trailer is out, with chase scene filmed in Worcester

WORCESTER — While comic book geeks are going gaga over the new “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” trailer due to the appearances of Ironheart and Namor (aka the Sub-Mariner), it’s the complex chase scene filmed on Worcester’s Main Street last year that is going to make locals' collective jaws drop.

At the one-minute-18-second mark of the new trailer, which was released Monday, a vintage red muscle car with a Massachusetts license plate of EE 0710 revs up its engine and comes barreling down Main Street with the Worcester Central District Courthouse clearly on the left.

A second later, a Cambridge police cruiser is slammed by the muscle car and the cruiser is propelled in the air by the impact, while the courthouse is visible now to the right. To the left are the black awnings of the Courthouse Café,  with the lights of Lincoln Square in the background.

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The muscle car does a high-speed spinout on Main Street  with the courthouse on the left and the Worcester County Sheriff’s office on the right.

With the use of good ol’ fashion movie magic, several cars engulfed in flames are seen sprawled on the roadway. Although it is made to look like it’s part of the same scene, the roadway doesn’t match up with the cityscape of Worcester, and is, most likely, a filming location in Cambridge.

Emerging from the flames is the red muscle car and a black motorcycle racing toward the camera. Although the motorcycle is a stranger in the trailer, those  familiar with the Worcester shoot Aug. 25, 2021 will recall the cycle.

At the one-minute-23-second mark of the trailer, the car chase scene abruptly ends.

In fact, if what a Telegram & Gazette reporter and photographer saw with their very own eyes can be trusted, there’s a lot more to the scene filmed for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” in downtown Worcester.

Although not in the trailer, the reporter and photographer witnessed three police cruisers barreling along Main Street toward Lincoln Square to block an armored Humvee.

The cruisers, all with markings of the Cambridge Police Department, were part of a continuation of a chase scene filmed a few days earlier around the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

After coming to a screeching halt in front of the courthouse, the cruisers were positioned on Main Street to block the Humvee coming from the other direction.

After several run-throughs – and after a water tanker soaked the street – actress Letitia Wright walked on the set.

Wright plays Black Panther’s sister, Princess Shuri, who is the chief science officer for Wakanda, the fictional nation where the throne has been left vacant due to the death of King T'Challah (played in the first "Black Panther" movie by the late Chadwick Boseman). 

Later in the shoot, the Humvee came back with a sky-blue motocross bike perched upright and fixed firmly on  its roof. And a person who appeared to be Wright, or her stunt double, put on a motorcycle helmet, hopped aboard and was fastened onto the bike.

With extras removing their face masks and walking on the sidewalk on both sides of the street, the Humvee came speeding down Main Street with the motorcycle and its driver fastened to the roof of the armored vehicle. It stopped short of hitting the cruisers.