Stars of "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" gathered in San Diego Saturday to promote the sequel to fans at the Comic-International pop-culture convention.

Conspicuously absent was actor Chadwick Boseman, lead of the original film, who died in 2020 after a battle with colon cancer.

But the sequel's actors clearly had not forgotten their original leading man - not on this night, and not while shooting the new film.

"We felt his presence every single day and we felt is the lack of having him there every single day," said actor Winston Duke. "He was a very powerful and gentle leader that didn't need to say much to for you to know that he was the lead of the movie. And with people like that, you feel them so much more when they're not there. You know? And we felt that every single day together, we mourned. Any time, you know, we had scenes that we had to reference him in particular, it was very hard. So the entire shoot was hard. But, you know, I'm really proud of us for completing this and doing this at a time where we're all collectively, globally grieving so many things."

"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" is set to open 11 November this year.