There’s little chance that Captain Marvel will be remembered as one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s finest entries, but it will go down as one of the most important. After all, the 21st outing in the franchise was the first headlined by a female superhero, as well as the first installment with a woman behind the camera, with Anna Boden co-directing alongside Ryan Fleck.
Carol Danvers’ MCU debut was a solid-if-unspectacular origin story that ticked all of the boxes in following the studio’s usual formula, and would go on to become one of the biggest hits of 2019 after earning a massive $1.128 billion at the box office. However, despite scoring generally positive reviews from both fans and critics alike, there was also a notable online backlash towards Captain Marvel.
It turns out that even the MCU isn’t safe from toxic fandom, with people launching targeted online campaigns in order to bring down the movie’s reputation and affect its Rotten Tomatoes score, along with petitions demanding that Academy Award-winning actress Brie Larson be replaced in the title role.
In a recent interview, Larson was asked how she felt about the online backlash towards Captain Marvel, and the 30 year-old surprisingly said that she wasn’t even aware of it, stating:
“I didn’t even know. I don’t have time for it, you know? The things that I have extra time to really look at are, like, ‘Am I eating healthy food?’, ‘Am I drinking water?’, ‘Am I meditating?’, ‘Have I called my mom today?’… I have genuinely never needed to look at the internet to explain to me who I am.”
While it seems doubtful that Larson was completely unaware of the troll campaign aimed at Captain Marvel, especially given that the movie’s producers were even forced to comment on it, credit to her for not letting it bother her. These days, the stars of big name franchises are constantly having to field questions about negative online reception, with The Rise of Skywalker being the most recent example, and it must be a pain for these actors to have to address the negativity when the positives are what should always be getting promoted.
Now that she knows how to handle the online pressure though, Larson will be more than capable of tackling any criticism that comes her way when she suits up again for Captain Marvel 2, which isn’t expected to arrive until 2023 at the earliest.
