The Long Road to Casting Captain Marvel

The Big Picture

• Brie Larson’s portrayal of Captain Marvel has made her an iconic figure in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, despite facing online negativity.
• The casting process for Captain Marvel was filled with rumors and speculation, with actresses like Emily Blunt, Charlize Theron, and Katee Sackhoff being considered for the role.
• Brie Larson’s casting as Captain Marvel surprised some, as she was known for her dramatic performances rather than action roles, but her performance has earned her praise.

Today, it’s impossible to think of the live-action incarnation of Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel without also thinking about her performer, Brie Larson. This Oscar-winning actor has portrayed one of the most formidable figures in the Marvel Cinematic Universe on four separate occasions even before she returned as a leading lady for The Marvels. She’s been an incredibly prominent figure in this multimedia franchise, while Larson’s notoriety in this role has also been unfortunately increased by toxic dudes on the internet latching onto her as a go-to source of rage and hatred. If these guys think Larson’s mainstream-friendly feminist rhetoric is bad, just wait until they pick up a book by bells hook or Ana-Maurine Lara!

But just because Larson has become famous in the role doesn’t mean she was always a shoo-in to play this part. On the contrary, the road to getting Carol Danvers cast in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was a long and winding one, full of rumored pit stops and tantalizing “what if?” casting scenarios. In the end, Brie Larson became a firmly certain choice for the part, to the point that she was cast in the role before the first solo Captain Marvel film even had a director. But before Larson signed on, there was a plethora of rumors surrounding who may or may not take up the mantle of Captain Marvel in this franchise.

Joss Whedon Wanted Captain Marvel for ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’

In October 2014, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige took the stage at the El Capitan Theatre to announce a slew of new Marvel movies that would make up Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Dotting out the studio’s schedule through 2019 with highly anticipated movies, only a handful of these features did not have lead actors at that time. Chadwick Boseman’s presence as T’Challa/Black Panther was also revealed at this event, while Benedict Cumberbatch was just a few weeks away from being confirmed as Doctor Strange. By the end of 2014, most of the future stars of the MCU through the rest of the 2010s were selected and even the saga’s Spider-Man (a character that Marvel Studios would only get the film rights back to in February 2015) would be cast very quickly by the summer of 2015. A glaring omission from that trend? Captain Marvel.

Despite having a July 2018 date for her first solo movie (which would eventually get delayed to March 2019) and writer/director Joss Whedon campaigning hard for the character to make a cameo in the final scene of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain Marvel was a big casting question mark for the Marvel Cinematic Universe for roughly two years. The fact that her actor was unknown while the other big Phase Three newcomers were all cast (not to mention her being the first woman to headline a film in this franchise) meant the rumor mill went supernova on who would be playing this character. After all, it wasn’t like movie websites could run articles speculating on who was playing Doctor Strange or the new Spider-Man anymore. Somebody else needed to be the central focus now…Carol Danvers fit the bill.

Emily Blunt, Charlize Theron, Rebecca Ferguson, and Katee Sackhoff Were All Rumored for Captain Marvel Role

The kind of folks initially rumored for this character also spoke to how few major American female action stars existed in the 2010s (though that field is still tragically limited). Initial flimsy rumors focused not on potential Oscar winners being considered for the role, but Battlestar: Galactica veteran Katee Sackhoff being a top contender for Danvers. By 2015, major names being thrown around for the role included Emily Blunt and Rebecca Ferguson, both of whom were hot off kicking butt in the Tom Cruise star vehicles Edge of Tomorrow and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, respectively. Meanwhile, a few weeks after Mad Max: Fury Road hit the big screen, Charlize Theron was heavily rumored to be in contention for the role of Captain Marvel.

If you were a lady who was already well-versed in action cinema in the 2010s, chances were you were going to get your name connected with Carol Danvers. Female action stars still weren’t a regular fixture in the world of mainstream cinema circa. 2015. That meant people were grabbing onto the few examples of ladies with guns/swords/deadly fists as go-to choices for Captain Marvel. By the end of 2015, though, Kevin Feige claimed to MTV that all the rumors that had been floating around for the past year were nothing but a bunch of clickbait nonsense. Feige clarified that the studio wasn’t even remotely in the realm of casting the character since the script for Captain Marvel was still being penned. A timetable of 2016 was offered as a potential time when casting would get more serious surrounding Captain Marvel, while it was also noted that Marvel Studios brass were very much conscious of certain fan-favorite casting choices for the character.

Brie Larson Is Officially Announced As Captain Marvel at San Diego Comic-Con

Brie Larson got her start as a film actor largely appearing in comedies like Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, 21 Jump Street, and Just Peck (though she had early success engaging with dramas in titles like Rampart). In the wake of headlining the acclaimed, tonally complicated 2013 indie film Short Term 12, Larson’s profile suddenly increased considerably, leading her to anchor the heavy drama Room in 2015. Brie Larson had finally come into her own, as a leading lady and a master of dramatic performances. While promoting this release, Larson began to grow conscious of a developing desire on the internet for her to take on the role of Captain Marvel. While talking to MTV in the 2015 promotional tour for Room (per DigitalSpy), Larson claimed she’d never heard of this character before and initially thought Captain Marvel was exclusively a man. Though she wasn’t familiar with the character in the comics, Larson was intrigued by the idea of the internet being enamored with her playing this particular superhero. “People want me to play this? OK, that’s good to know. I guess I gotta start reading the comic book,” she told MTV.

Given how secretive the entire process of casting Marvel superheroes is, it’s impossible to know if Larson was being truly genuine in her ignorance or if this was a case of her playing “dumb” to throw people off from a role she was negotiating to take on at the time. But with Feige’s comments that the Carol Danvers role wasn’t planned to be cast until 2016, though, it feels reasonable to assume Larson’s understandable lack of knowledge over this character was authentic. In Larson’s first public comments about Captain Marvel, it just seemed like a bit of odd fan-casting. By the summer of 2016, though, the possibility of this actor inhabiting this role became a lot more serious. Variety broke the news at the start of June 2016 that Larson had emerged as Marvel’s first choice for the part of Captain Marvel, a bit of casting that made Larson’s Scott Pilgrim co-star Chris Evans very, very happy.

Larson’s casting was especially interesting since it flew right in the face of expectations that Marvel Studios was eager to get a woman well-versed in action cinema to headline this particular production. While Larson had shot a handful of films that featured fistfights or explosions (she had already finished filming her Kong: Skull Island role when she got the Captain Marvel part), she was most certainly not a Ferguson or Theron that was suddenly deeply associated with the world of action features. Marvel Studios instead took a cue from its then-recent casting of Chadwick Boseman and Benedict Cumberbatch in getting a person well-versed in dramatic cinema to lend gravitas to an outlandish superhero.

With Larson officially coming out to the San Diego Comic-Con 2016 crowd as Captain Marvel a month after her casting was first rumored, it was official — Captain Marvel was cast. The long search was over. Fan speculation would have to turn over to other potential future Marvel Cinematic Universe characters, Carol Danvers was now gearing up to go out into movie theaters everywhere. Even if the vast majority of those 2013-2015 fan-castings for this character went nowhere, that doesn’t mean they’re totally worthless in the context of history. On the contrary, they all provide a vivid portrait of which actors were really on the radar of internet geeks in this era of cinema history. They also provide food for thought on what the Marvel Cinematic Universe could have looked like if Emily Blunt or Rebecca Ferguson had become entangled in the long-term role of Captain Marvel.

Captain Marvel is available to stream on Disney+ in the U.S. ahead of The Marvels‘ theater debut on November 10.

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