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The hype is real.
Captain Marvel looks set to answer at least some of the massive questions that we had at the end of Infinity War, even if it ends up asking a lot more. Whilst there's likely to be a few direct ties to the Avengers (probably just in the end credit sting, dammit), Captain Marvel is very much it's own thing - a standalone movie about a new super, set in the '90s. Whatever the film means for Phase 3, it's going to mean a lot more for Phase 4. This is future of the MCU, and here's everything we know about it.
Click through the gallery above to see the first official images from Captain Marvel, and read on to keep up to date with who, what, when, why and how Carol Danvers is going to change everything in 2019.
Captain Marvel trailer
The first teaser trailer landed on September 18th, debuting on Good Morning America. From digi-de-ageing to Cree theories and why that old lady is getting punched in the face, read our full trailer breakdown to pick apart Marvel's first teaser.
Captain Marvel plot
Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige has said that "Captain Marvel is certainly an origin. It’s an origin story from the start,” but what do we know about the character?
Well, she was originally created by writer Roy Thomas and artist Gene Colan as Ms. Marvel back in the late 70s, and almost a decade later fans were finally able to discover her alter ago - Carol Danvers.
Danvers was serving in the US Air Force when she was exposed to an explosion detonated by the Kree (those pesky aliens who included Lee Pace among them as the antagonists of James Gunn's first Guardians Of The Galaxy film). Her genes were fused with Kree genes as a result of this incident, making her pretty darn powerful. She's incredibly strong, she can fly, she absorbs and projects energy, and also has a little bit of psychic power too.
It's no wonder The Avengers snapped her up for team duty.
The key question about Captain Marvel will of course remain out of our reach until at least March - is she definitely the answer to reversing or controlling the devastating events of Infinity War? We shall have to wait and see.
Here's the official synopsis for the movie, that we were offered a while back, and which makes a lot more sense now:
The story follows Carol Danvers as she becomes one of the universe’s most powerful heroes when Earth is caught in the middle of a galactic war between two alien races. Set in the 1990s, “Captain Marvel” is an all-new adventure from a previously unseen period in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
As described by EW, the film "sidesteps the traditional origin-story template, and when it begins, Carol already has her powers. She’s left her earthly life behind to join the elite military team Starforce on the Kree planet of Hala. (Directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck describe Starforce as the SEAL Team Six of space.) Its members include Carol, Korath (Djimon Hounsou), and Minn-Erva (Crazy Rich Asians’ Gemma Chan)."
Perhaps there is an element of learning from past 'mistakes' here. Audiences weren't massively keen on Marvel revisiting its traditional Iron Man-esque origin story design in Doctor Strange and Ant-Man, but introducing Spider-Man in Civil War with his life as a superhero already well underway went down a treat. Being launched into the intergalactic world of Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) straight off the bat is kind of a smart move, and there'll be more than enough familiar characters to keep us grounded along the way, including Ronan The Accuser (Lee Pace) and Korath who are returning to play villains who both met their maker in James Gunn's 2014 gamechanger, Guardians Of The Galaxy, along with a young Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson).
Marvel's head honcho Kevin Fiege recently told Total Film that “much of the movie takes place in outer space,” and that when the action kicks off in our vulnerable bumbag-and-Friends-obsessed decade, directors Boden and Fleck have been inspired by Terminator 2 for their "steet level fights and car chases."
Since the first poster arrived, we also know that Chewie the Flerken will probably feature - although we don't know yet whether or not we're going to see him unleash his tentacled mouth in the movie. Since he seemed to be a bit of an Easter Egg on the poster, it's possible that he might not even be a big part of the story at all - but since he's probably the coolest "cat" in comics, it'd be a huge shame if Chewie doesn't get a bit of proper screentime.
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Captain Marvel cast
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Brie Larson will play Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers.
Larson took home an Oscar for her stunning performance in Room, and in truth, has been delivering excellent work for years. Check out Short Term 12, for instance, if you’ve never had the pleasure. She’s outstanding there, in another outstanding movie.
She's also in monster blockbuster Kong: Skull Island and it looks like – assuming she's signed up for more than one Captain Marvel appearance – Larson has many more blockbuster films ahead of her.
"I have very specific reasons for doing film, and they don’t have to do with me or getting my face plastered on more objects”, Larson explained at the Toronto Film Festival after nabbing the part.
“It’s about the material. And movies live on and can be places I can’t, and I want to be conscious about what it is that I’m presenting to the world, and what those representations of life are, and how they’re being shared. And obviously Marvel is such an incredible platform to be able to share in storytelling".
"I think what Captain Marvel represents, and what this film is shaping up to be, has a message that’s undeniably important to the world right now”.
She added to the importance of Captain Marvel as a role model already. “The thing that’s been the most exciting now is on social media I get sent a lot of pictures of young girls in the Captain Marvel costume and I’m excited to see more of that. She’s such a great symbol for young girls, and realising what a deficit we have, that we don’t have more of those”.
Here, here.
We also know that Jude Law will appear in Captain Marvel as Dr Walter Lawson, aka Captain Mar-Vell, aka the commader of Starforce, aka a Kree.
“These extraordinary powers she has, he sees them as something of a blessing and something that she has to learn how to control,” Law noted. “That’s a motif throughout the piece, the element of learning to control one’s emotions and to use your powers wisely.”
Law joins Brie Larson who is in the lead role, as well as Ben Mendelsohn who was previously confirmed to be playing the villain Half Nelson.
The news of Clark Gregg’s recently-revealed movie comeback in Captain Marvel already implied that we’d see a younger version of Phil Coulson, since the film’s 1990s timeframe has long been established. However, new details revealed by the actor, in an interview with EW, provide intriguing context to that premise. Indeed, in an idea that will stand in stark contrast to the smooth operator that we know and love, the version of Coulson that we’re getting here will be a rookie S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who’s thrust into the film’s cosmic-related events.
As Gregg explains of his Young Coulson role, "we’re seeing a version of Coulson that’s, what, 8 or 9 years, 10 years before Iron Man." Adding, "He’s a bit of a new guy in S.H.I.E.L.D. He’s a lot younger. It’s the earliest we will have seen him, so when he says, ‘Mr. Stark, this isn’t my first rodeo’ in [2008’s original] Iron Man, this is maybe the rodeo he’s talking about.”
Gregg’s (possibly off-the-cuff) timeframe reveal seems to set the film around 1998, though judging by the uber-90s fashions we’ve seenin the trailer, it could still be a bit before that time. Regardless, this aspect makes Captain Marvel all the more intriguing, since it will provide the heretofore missing starting point of Phil Coulson’s arc. Yet, he won’t be alone in the digitally de-aged crowd, since Samuel L. Jackson is also be back as a young(er) Nick Fury - who we've now seen in the trailer looking a bit like he did in his Long Kiss Goodnight days.
MCU mastermind Kevin Feige had a chat with Slashfilm about the 90s setting, addressing the fact that Jackson and Gregg will be intricately de-aged 25 years. We've seen a little of the technique used in various other films in the ever-expanding universe, but this will be the biggest challenge yet for the effects team, as Feige explains:
“Well, I think having the option is pretty amazing. And I think having the technology and even without spoiling anything, Sam Jackson is shooting a movie for us right now that takes, where he’s entirely 25 years younger the whole movie [Captain Marvel]. So that’ll certainly be the one… That’ll be the first one where it’s a character for the whole movie, as opposed to a glimpse at a certain period of time. It’s the whole movie. So it’s possible, assuming that works. It’s possible. It’s very good when you are starting by the way with somebody like Michelle Pfeiffer or Michael Douglas or for that matter Samuel L. Jackson or Clark Gregg.”
Indeed, even though Marvel has dabbled with de-aging before... having that work well and not be massively distracting for an entire movie, and one in which so much backstory seems to hang, narratively? Hmm, we guess only time will tell!
On a side note, Gregg also implies that the movie will bear a retro-tastic soundtrack that could end up rivaling that of the Guardians Of The Galaxy films. “The fact that it’s in the 90s and I had a feeling that the soundtrack would be as good as it seems like it’s gonna be, that’s just a bonus. The 90s are still pretty much on mind. Definitely the 90s songs I was listening to and was hearing people listen to got me excited for a 90s soundtrack.” He also told us that Coulson is obsessed with MC Hammer, so we can at least expect a bit of 'U Can't Touch This'.
Annette Bening has signed up to feature in the movie.
Bening’s role in the movie is thus far being kept under wraps, reports THR. All that’s known so far is that she’s playing a scientist, but that hardly narrows things down. Rumours suggest, though, that she'll be playing the mother of Larson's Carol Danvers in the movie.
It’s a rare studio movie for Bening, and we’d suggest quote a coup for the Captain Marvel movie to land her.
Captain Marvel crew
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Nicole Perlman and Meg LeFauve have been tapped to pen the Captain Marvel screenplay.
Nicole Perlman was co-writer on Guardians Of The Galaxy, so already has some writing form for the studio. LeFauve has co-written Pixar's superb Inside Out. And whilst they're not a pair of writers who have worked as a team before, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige was apparently impressed with their individual takes on Captain Marvel, so has brought them together for this project.
Not for the first time, Captain Marvel will be an MCU film directed by two people. Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck are the successful candidates, the latest to be plucked from independent cinema to get their shot at a Marvel property. The pair have previously directed the excellent Mississippi Grind and Half Nelson, and they’ve also worked on TV shows such as The Affair and Billions.
Production on the film began on January 8th 2018 at Atlanta's Pinewood facility. The site listed some basic story details, that read thus:
Captain Marvel release date
Captain Marvel is due in cinemas on March 8th, 2019.
