Captain Marvel ($1.1 Billion Worldwide Box Office)

As Marvel Studios begins putting together its upcoming Captain Marvel film, Brie Larson has emerged as the front-runner for the role in what would be Marvel’s first female-led superhero pic, Deadline has confirmed. The Room Oscar winner has been a rumored contender for months and now flies ahead of Emily Blunt and Olivia Wilde, who have been fan favorites for the role. The film is scheduled for release March 8, 2019, with a script by Guardians of the Galaxy co-writer Nicole Perlman & Inside Out co-writer Meg LeFauve. No director has been announced.

The alter ego of Air Force pilot Carol Danvers, she’s actually the sixth Marvel character to use the name. She debuted in 1968 as a human ally to the space alien Mar-Vell, who operated on Earth as Captain Marvel. Eventually exposed to some fairly weird comic book science magic, in 1977 she was given her own comic book under the superhero name Ms. Marvel. Danvers continued to appear in Marvel comics over the years under that name until 2012, when she officially assumed the name Captain Marvel in tribute to the original, who was killed off via inoperable cancer in a 1982 story, The Death of Captain Marvel, Marvel Comics’ first graphic novel. (Since assuming the name, the Ms. Marvel moniker has been given to Kamala Khan, the first Muslim character to headline a Marvel Comics title.)

Possessing superhuman strength and other abilities along with flight and energy projection, Danvers generally has been associated with Marvel’s “cosmic” line of heroes, which also includes the Guardians of the Galaxy and others. Rumor has it Captain Marvel will be making her film debut prior to her stand-alone film in another Marvel franchise, possibly Avengers 3 (formerly Avengers: Infinity War Part One) or Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Similar, in other words, to how the studio unveiled Black Panther and the rebooted Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War.

A little trivia about the name: The first Captain Marvel in comics was Fawcett Comics’ Superman-influenced hero first introduced in 1939 and better known today as Shazam. The character was a big seller during the golden age of comics but was taken off shelves in 1954 after Fawcett settled a bitter copyright infringement lawsuit with DC Comics (then called National Comics) out of court. DC later purchased the character from Fawcett, but by that time Marvel Comics had debuted its own Captain Marvel and trademarked the name, leading to DC’s use of Shazam.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Interesting choice, she's a great actress. I read Katee Sackhoff wanting to play her a while back and she looks just like the character.

WyldeMan wrote:Sckhoff has lobbied for a lot of parts but she went really hard after CA. Doesn't seem like she was ever even asked to audition.

Emily Blunt would have been my choice and isn't CA British?

UltimateMarvel wrote:She's even got her costume on. Love it!

Jude Law Lands Leading Role of Mar-Vell

Oscar-nominated actor Jude Law is in talks to play Brie Larson’s mentor in the upcoming Marvel movie Captain Marvel.

Half Nelson and Mississippi Grind helmers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck are on board to direct Marvel’s next big character introduction after Black Panther, with Marvel chief Kevin Feige producing.

The movie will introduce MCU followers to Larson’s Carol Danvers, an Air Force pilot whose DNA is fused with an alien’s DNA after an accident giving her the powers of flight, strength and energy projection.

According to Variety, which broke the casting news, Law will be playing Dr. Walter Lawson, aka Mar-Vell, who becomes a mentor to Carol as she adjusts to her newfound powers. The film will co-star Ben Mendelsohn as the villain.

The most recent screenplay is by Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Tomb Raider) working from previous drafts by Meg LeFauve (Inside Out) and Nicole Perlman.

Repped  by WME, Julian Belfrage Associates and Karl Austen, Law recently signed on for the role of young Albus Dumbledore in Warner Bros’ Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Gindenwald and finished Woody Allen’s latest untitled movie and the spy thriller The Rhythm Section with Blake Lively. It’s also thought that Law will return as Mr. Watson in the third Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey, Jr, although there have been few developments on the continuation of that franchise (which is produced by Fantastic Beasts’ Lionel Wigram).

With almost thirty years of acting under his belt, Law is a highly respected actor who received Oscar nominations for Cold Mountain and The Talented Mr. Ripley, both directed by the late Anthony Minghella. In the last year, Law shifted to television playing the lead role in HBO’s The Young Pope and playing the main villain in Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.

Samuel L. Jackson is also said to be returning as Nick Fury in the movie, which is scheduled for release on March 8, 2019.

Samuel L. Jackson will appear to be a lot younger when he plays Nick Fury in the upcoming Captain Marvel film, which is set to be released next year. That makes sense, since the film is set in the 1990s, a previously unseen period in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Captain Marvel is directed by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, and stars Brie Larson as titular hero Carol Danvers. This is Marvel Studios' first solo female-fronted superhero movie, and Larson initially believed taking on the role could be a burden. Thankfully, she changed her mind. Samuel L. Jackson, Jude Law, Gemma Chan, and Lee Pace also have major roles. The movie isn't due to open until March 19, making the wait for Captain Marvel's arrival longer than usual for Marvel Fans who have become used to a new MCU film opening every few months.

In a new interview with Slash Film, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige talks about the de-aging of Michelle Pfeiffer through digital technology in Ant-Man & The Wasp, and indicates the same technology will be used on Samuel L. Jackson in Captain Marvel. "Well, I think having the option is pretty amazing.  And I think having the technology and even without spoiling anything, Sam Jackson is shooting a movie for us right now that takes, where he’s entirely 25 years younger the whole movie," Feige notes, admitting that the fact that actors like Jackson, 69, have aged well helps with the technology.     

Until relatively recently, making stars look younger for flashback roles had not been effective. For example, one could go back to 1996's Evita, where Madonna was supposed to look like a teenager at the beginning of the film, despite being 37 years old while filming. And one could then go back 10 years before that when Kathleen Turner, in her early 30s, was also playing a teenager in  Peggy Sue Got Married. Her performance was acclaimed, but most agreed that the makeup wasn't able to hide her real age.

However, since 2008's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, updated CGI technology has made de-aging a lot more believable, and Marvel Studios has been on the cutting edge. In addition to the believable de-aging they did with Michelle Pfeiffer, Marvel did an amazing job of de-aging Michael Douglas for the first Ant-Man in 2015, a feat repeated in Ant-Man & The Wasp. Then, in 2016's Captain America: Civil War, Robert Downey Jr. was perfectly de-aged. It'll be interesting to see how Marvel de-ages Samuel L. Jackson, especially because they are doing it for the entire film, which will presumably require much more intensive work than would de-aging him for a single scene.

Tyger wrote:After RDJ in Captain America: Civil War, I know they can do it, assuming the same for Clark Gregg

Tyger wrote:Finally. Not bad.

UltimateMarvel wrote:DAAAAAAAAAAAAMN! This looks great. I know nothing about Captain Marvel so I'll be going to see this. Seeing Fury and Coulson young is cool.

WyldeMan wrote:

UltimateMarvel wrote:DAAAAAAAAAAAAMN! This looks great. I know nothing about Captain Marvel so I'll be going to see this. Seeing Fury and Coulson young is cool.

UltimateMarvel is completely unfamiliar with Captain Marvel, that's probably why she outranks your made up title Abe.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Yep. That's how I saw it play out in chronological order too. Trailer didn't show much so I don't know why they didn't call it a teaser.

WyldeMan wrote:The trailer was two minutes long how much more do you need to know if you're going to watch the movie? 

I despise extra long trailers that quick cut the entire movie edited down into 3-4 minutes because that doesn't make me want to see the movie it makes me feel like I already have and then I just skip it.

I always know within 30 seconds of a trailer if I will be seeing the movie or not and then I just stop watching before the trailer ruins the rest of the movie for me and shows me all of the plot twists and character deaths.

Tyger wrote:I haven’t seen it, but I can only assume those people haven’t watched Thor: The Dark World

UltimateMarvel wrote:People are saying this is the worst Marvel movie ever. LOL

WyldeMan wrote:

Tyger wrote:I haven’t seen it, but I can only assume those people haven’t watched Thor: The Dark World

Aka the movie that instantly made me quit watching all other Marvel movies.

UltimateMarvel wrote:People are saying this is the worst Marvel movie ever. LOL

I wish that self imposed ban had lasted and I had not watched Black Panther on Netflix which is now my new pick for worst of all Marvel movies.

WyldeMan wrote:I wish that self imposed ban had lasted and I had not watched Black Panther on Netflix which is now my new pick for worst of all Marvel movies.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Curious, what is your pick for best Marvel movie? Mine is Winter Soldier.