Carol Danvers is bound for outer space, it seems.
That shouldn’t be all that surprising to those familiar with the Captain Marvel comics, but while discussing life after Avengers: Infinity War with Entertainment Weekly, MCU figurehead and all-around industry expert Kevin Feige spoke at length about the Brie Larson-fronted spinoff, which will seemingly borrow cues from 90s action movies.
Not only that, but much of the movie takes place in outer space, as Larson’s fresh-faced hero begins to harness her abilities – namely strength, energy projection, and flight – after her DNA is fused with that of an alien following a near-fatal accident. So it’s no wonder Feige considers Captain Marvel to be one of the strongest additions to the MCU yet.
But before we get swept up in talk of future crossovers, the Marvel boss explained the thinking behind Captain Marvel and its 90s time period.
We wanted to explore a period before Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury had any idea about any of the other heroes and crazy stuff going on in the world. You know, we first met Nick when he told Tony, ‘You’re part of a big universe. You just don’t know yet.’ Well, we want to go back to a time when he didn’t know it yet, and really showcase and announce that Carol Danvers was that first hero that Nick came across.
That meant she could be the singular hero, but place it within the timing of the MCU. It also got us talking about different genres, exploring this notion of sort of the ‘90s action film. We hadn’t necessarily done anything like that before either, so there are definitely homages to our favorite ‘90s action films within Captain Marvel.
With directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck at the helm, Captain Marvel is already filming ahead of its long-awaited release in 2019. And though Feige naturally refrained from divulging too much, too soon, the studio executive name-dropped Terminator 2: Judgment Day as a big influence, while also confirming that the end product will largely unfold among the cosmos.
Not necessarily talking about any particulars of the story, but the action elements Terminator 2. That’s about as iconic as you get, looking at kind of those cool street level fights, street-level car chases, and fun stuff like that. That being said, much of the movie takes place in outer space, as you might think a Captain Marvel movie would. Like all of our genre inspirations, there are bits and pieces here and there.
The decision to whisk viewers back to the 1990s is undoubtedly a bold one, as it carves out a new corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that’s yet to be explored. And though Black Panther featured a similar time period, Feige went on to clarify that not all Marvel movies will begin toying around with a non-linear narrative.
I would say no. I mean, in terms of Captain Marvel and a young T’Chaka in ’92, no. That’s not where we’re headed. But we would talk about the ancestral plane sequence [in Black Panther] where, towards the end of the movie, T’Challa takes the herb again and encounters his father, where he’s like, ‘Hey, man. We’ve kind of screwed up, and I want to change it.’
There’s that moment where all of the ancestors come behind T’Chaka. We would joke and go, ‘I want to see … what’s their story? What’s that story? Who was Bashenga, the first king of Wakanda? Who’s that third to the left, behind T’Chaka? What was their story in Wakanda in 1938? That would be cool.’ It all starts [with] conversations like that. The more audiences want to see these stories, the more opportunities we have to explore different places and time.
Look for Captain Marvel to soar into theaters on March 8th, 2019, which tells us that the one-year countdown has officially begun.