Ladies and gentlemen, meet your new Captain Marvel, Brie Larson. Over the weekend during the Marvel presentation at San Diego Comic-Con, it was announced that Larson is taking on the role in Marvel’s first female-led comic movie.
Larson, who won the Academy Award for Best Actress earlier this year for her performance in “Room,” joined in the announcement excitement on her on Twitter account.
Call me Captain Marvel.
As we previously reported, Captain Marvel is a character whose role has been taken on by many people in the Marvel universe. Both men and women have held the title. Thankfully, Marvel decided to utilize Captain Marvel’s most recent identity of Carol Danvers, also known as Ms. Marvel, rather than making another male-led superhero flick. Danvers first appeared as Ms. Marvel in 1968 and assumed the Captain Marvel mantle in 2012. (As a side note: the current Ms. Marvel is 16-year-old Kamala Khan, a Pakistani-American and Marvel’s first Muslim to headline her own comic.)
As The Guardian notes, the upcoming iteration of the story will follow Danvers as “an air force pilot involved in an accident that combines her DNA with that of an alien. This then leads to her possessing super strength.”
Larson is joining a long line of Oscar-winners who have also starred in big-budget comic book films since they’ve become the tent-poles that they are. Gwyneth Paltrow has played Pepper Potts for a few “Iron Man” movies. Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton have joined the Marvel universe and will appear in “Thor: Ragnarok” and “Doctor Strange.” Natalie Portman played but has since abandoned the role of Jane Foster in the first two “Thor” movies. In the comics, a female Thor took his place and it was eventually revealed that Jane was behind the Thor mask. We’d love for Portman to revisit the role now that Jane has become an Asgardian Goddess.
No director has yet been announced, but we’re hoping Marvel takes a hint from DC and hires a female director to helm its female superhero movie. It’s been speculated that Angelina Jolie is among those being considered to direct the film. Other names flying around the director’s chair include “Whale Rider” helmer Niki Caro, and “The Babadook” director Jennifer Kent. Cinematographer Reed Marano is interested as well. Meg LeFauve (“Inside Out”) and Nicole Perman (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) are writing the script.
