Marvel Reportedly Thinks Brie Larson Needs Backup In The Marvels

2019’s Captain Marvel was a huge success by whichever metric you choose to gauge it, as it received both strong reviews and earned over $1 billion at the box office. Still, the film also became the subject of an online backlash from a subset of fans who, for whatever reason, had beef with star Brie Larson. This hasn’t really abated over the past couple of years, either.

Just this week, we learned that Captain Marvel 2 has been retitled The Marvels, which seemingly promises it’ll be more of an ensemble flick and less of another solo outing for Carol Danvers. And according to Giant Freakin Robot, there’s a direct link between the backlash against Larson and this new angle for the sequel.

The outlet has shared that Marvel changed the title to The Marvels because “the powers-that-be did not feel that she “delivered” in the first one on her own.” Furthermore, they say that “they decided to reconfigure the Brie Larson sequel into a team-up movie in order to generate more interest from audiences and fans.” In other words, they felt she needed some backup, which will now consist of Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau, as introduced in WandaVision, and Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan, who we’ll meet later this year in Disney Plus’ Ms. Marvel TV series.

Whether you put any stock in this rumor or not is up to you. After all, we heard back in January that Larson was pushing to have more female leading characters in the sequel alongside her, so this suggests that the team-up angle was something the actress wanted to happen and not something that Marvel manufactured because of internet negativity. If anything, it sounds like it’s a response to positive fan reactions instead. Folks have been calling for an all-female team-up flick for years, and now we’ve got one. It might not be A-Force, but it’s a start.

The Marvels is coming from Candyman reboot director Nia DaCosta. Alongside Brie Larson, Parris and Vellani is Zawe Ashton in an as-yet unknown villain role. Shooting is on the verge of starting later this month ahead of its arrival in theaters on November 11th, 2022.