What with poor box office projections, a strike stopping its stars from promoting it, and all the inherited backlash it sadly gets simply from featuring Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel, The Marvels really needs all the help it can get lest it become yet another mark against the Multiverse Saga.
So it’s hard not to face-palm, then, when you hear that the movie could’ve crossed over with the two most popular Phase Five projects of those released so far, which no doubt would’ve helped its MCU street cred considerably. While speaking with Jake’s Takes, director Nia DaCosta was asked what she would’ve added to The Marvels if she had no franchise restrictions in play.
This is when the filmmaker admitted she initially tried to bring Will Poulter’s Adam Warlock on board, not to mention slipping in some time travel shenanigans, before these ties to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Loki were vetoed by The Powers That Be:
“Actually, interestingly, one of the first things I pitched way back when, was having Adam Warlock and time travel in the movie. But Adam was going to be in Guardians 3 and I think they have enough time travel in Loki, so we didn’t do that. But we do have some fun stuff in that realm in the movie.”
It sounds like DaCosta put some real thought into Adam’s role in the film as her further comments on how it would’ve fit into his ongoing story suggest The Marvels might’ve been originally envisioned as some kind of prequel, or perhaps sequel, to Guardians 3, thereby providing some additional context to his character development.
“My big plan, which is part of what’s amazing about doing something in such a big universe with so many films, it’s like ‘Well, if we bring in Adam Warlock here, we bring him into the present and then in another movie we can understand where we was coming from,” DaCosta explained.
While there was some contention over Adam’s childlike portrayal in Guardians 3, there’s certainly a lot of interest in seeing him return, so having The Marvels operate as an immediate follow-up to James Gunn’s final MCU offering would’ve really helped it ride on the coattails of the immense success of May 2023’s threequel. Likewise, adding in some thematic crossover with the equally popular Loki season 2, which it is releasing alongside, would’ve been extremely canny on Marvel’s part.
Having said that, The Marvels is probably a sequel to enough projects as it is and we all know what other eXciting crossovers are eXpected to occur.
