In 2019, Marvel Studios is set to unleash its very first female-headlined superhero movie as Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers takes flight in Captain Marvel. We’re still waiting to hear word on a director for the project, but we do know that the screenplay is being written by Nicole Perlman (Guardians of the Galaxy) and Meg LeFauve (Inside Out), and Perlman has been chatting to The Great Big Beautiful Podcast (via CBM) about the project, and whether they are approaching it differently given the female lead.
“”I think theres a tendency to have that back and forth conversation of ‘Should it affect the story at all?’ or ‘Should it affect the writing?’ I think that making sure that Captain Marvel is not somebody who is a hero in SPITE of her femininity is important. She’s a very strong character and her being a woman is part of that strength. I will say that there are certain tropes you can get away without having to examine too much if you’re not writing the first female Marvel Studios lead; that could be read into a lot or that could diminish hero own proactivity, strength, and independence. There are things you wouldn’t think twice about Iron Man but you would think twice about for Captain Marvel.”
Perlman also spoke about connecting the film to the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe, stating that: “Marvel is a little bit of a house of cards in a sense that everything influences everything around it even if its very modular. Figuring out where the story fits in the MCU influences things as well. She’s an incredible character, but I will also say that since Marvel has done so many movies already, you really have to go out of your way to make sure her story is fresh and doesn’t borrow too heavily from the other films. She’s an incredibly strong and wonderful hero, but all the Marvel characters are. So you just need to figure out how to bring her to life in a way thats unique to her story but in a way that honors the canon and also gearing out the roles that she needs to play with everything that’s going on in the MCU. It’s a little bit of a twister game whereas Guardians is very free– where it’s like the sky is the limit. With Captain Marvel, it’s been trying to really figure out who Carol Danvers is and how to just tell a story that fulfills all the structural needs of who she is but also really channels the spirit of who this incredibly powerful and inspiring person is.”
Captain Marvel is set for release on March 8th 2019, but Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers is expected to make her big screen debut in next year’s Avengers: Infinity War.
Originally published February 12, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
