Posted in: Movies | Tagged: captain marvel, Carol Danvers, film, kevin feige, marvel

'Captain Marvel' Will Focus On Character And Not Her Powers

There has been a lot of patiently waiting for fans of Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel. The movie was announced back in 2014 with a July 2018 (then delayed to 2019) release date that felt a lifetime away. It was a lot of sitting around to see who would write it, direct it, and who would be bringing Carol to the big screen. We got the answer in the form of Oscar winner Brie Larson announced in Hall H at San Diego Comic Con. The director is something we've been waiting for just as long and it was recently announced that Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. This announcement came as a surprise to anyone who hasn't been paying attention to any of Marvel's director announcements.

Marvel has been picking smaller and unknown directors for their projects for years. Anthony and Joe Russo were mostly known for Community before they were brought on to helm Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Now they are handling both of the upcoming Avengers movies with a budget of a billion dollars. Joss Whedon was mostly known for a bunch of cult favorite television shows and a movie spin-off of one of those shows before bringing him on to direct The Avengers. James Gunn was known for an indie horror film and a deconstruction of the superhero genre before being brought on for Guardians of the Galaxy. Marvel has picked unknowns and had it work out for them in the past so the fact that they went for two people we haven't heard much of is not surprising.

Kevin Feige recently talked to Vulture about the decision to bring on Boden and Fleck and how they are going to approach a character like Carol Danvers.

"We cast a pretty wide net," said Feige. "It's always based on people who've done things that we thought were interesting, at any level. We haven't hired anybody who've never done a feature before, but what gets you in the room is doing interesting work in television and interesting work in features, both of which they've done. And then it's about the conversation and the vision that we see."

Feige and company knew how important it was to get the right director (or in this case directors) for their first female lead movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It will be over ten years and twenty movies before we finally get that solo lead movie but that is a discussion for another time. That being said Feige liked Boden and Fleck because they were focusing on characters in their movies and that is what they wanted to focus on for Carol. Feige has said that Captain Marvel is one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel universe and to make someone like that work in a movie you need to focus on character above powers.

Feige and company seem to realize that the reason people keep coming back to these movies is because they are invested in the characters as people. While seeing Captain America take out an entire platoon by himself is fun to watch it's seeing how a man out of time adjusts to the real world is what endears him to the audience.

"That's a big part of the story line we're putting together, and it's certainly been a big part of the development conversation. Particularly for Captain Marvel, which is going to have a lot of spectacle, it ultimately needs to be about the three-dimensional, multilayered Carol Danvers character," said Feige. "You have to be able to track her and follow her and relate to her at all points of the movie, regardless of how many visual effects and spaceships and bad guys are filling the frame. That's what's important."

Feige, Boden, Fleck, and everyone at Marvel seem to realize that while watching Carol Danvers zap people with energy blasts will get them in the theater it will be Carol as a human being that will make her even more iconic than she already is.

Captain Marvel will be released on March 8, 2019.

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