As Marvel Studios’ first film with a female lead, Captain Marvel had a ton of pressure on it when it landed in theaters earlier this year. And while it may not have been as beloved and praised as some other MCU movies and stuck a bit too closely to the studio’s familiar formula, it still brought us a fairly enjoyable origin story for Carol Danvers.
Not to mention that despite all those trolls trying to sabotage its reputation online, Captain Marvel went on to pull in over $1.1 billion at the box office. And though the hero didn’t really have much to do in Avengers: Endgame besides showing up in a few action scenes and sporting a snazzy new hairdo, there’s still much to come for her in the MCU as Brie Larson has five films left on her contract.
Be that as it may, a new rumor is claiming that Disney has lost a lot of confidence in the actress and the hero she plays, and it all has to do with Spider-Man. According to Cosmic Book News, citing YouTube channel Overlord DVD – so yeah, take this one with a pretty big grain of salt for now – Marvel planned to use Tom Holland’s Spidey to help make Captain Marvel more likeable, but with the web-slinger now out of the MCU, they’re worried that Carol Danvers will have a tough time finding favor with audiences.
“Disney is having Brie Larson fatigue and they have lost confidence in her and in the direction they’re moving with Captain Marvel,” the YouTuber claims. “Marvel had plans for Captain Marvel but those plans were utterly derailed by the loss of Spider-Man to Sony.”
Apparently, the plan was to pair Carol up with Spider-Man in future films in order to help “humanize and balance her out a bit” given that she’s currently a “little stiff” and kind of “unlikable,” which is certainly true. Furthermore, it’s said that Peter Parker was going to be used as a “second banana” for Captain Marvel and the studio needed him to help give her a personality.
“And now they are stuck with a rigged unlikable hero with no personality… and no plan moving forward,” claims the YouTuber. “Captain Marvel is on shaky ground. The company is losing confidence in the character. They hoped to bolster her appeal using Spider-Man… but those plans have now been torpedoed by Sony, which frankly makes me glad that Sony saved Spider-Man from all of this.”
“Disney is losing confidence in Captain Marvel and may be slowly starting to realize that alienating your fan base isn’t the best way to run a business.”
Again, we’ll stress that this should be taken with a heavy dose of salt and the YouTuber even mentions several times that it remains firmly filed in the rumor cabinet for now. But all that being said, this isn’t too difficult to believe.
Despite the film’s success at the box office, it’s true that Captain Marvel herself failed to connect with a lot of fans and many have had the same complaints as this report mentions. Those being that she’s too stiff and unlikeable and hard to relate to. Pairing her up with Spider-Man certainly could’ve gone some way to fixing that but with the web-slinger now gone, Marvel’s plans may have been derailed.
That’s not to say Captain Marvel 2 is now going to be cancelled, or Brie Larson is going to depart the MCU, but perhaps she won’t be the face of the franchise moving forward as was the original plan back before her solo film hit theaters.
