CAPTAIN
MARVEL

A FILM FIRST ANNOUNCED IN 2014

HOW CAPTAIN MARVEL REACHED THE SCREEN

Marvel’s writing room had produced a script for a Ms. Marvel film by May 2013, and Kevin Feige announced in October 2014 that Carol Danvers would front Marvel Studios’ first female-led film. Brie Larson’s casting was confirmed at San Diego Comic-Con in 2016, and Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck were hired to direct in April 2017, with Geneva Robertson-Dworet joining as a writer that summer. The release date moved from 6 July 2018 to 8 March 2019.

Boden said on 7 January 2019 that “it’s not your traditional origin story,” and that the film is “a ’90s period film.”

A YOUNGER NICK FURY

HOW THE FILM RECREATES 1995

Lola VFX de-aged Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury by about 25 years, and Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson, using the 1997 film One Eight Seven as a primary reference. The studio worked on about 500 effects shots, of which 385 made the final cut. The cast also includes Ben Mendelsohn as Talos, Jude Law as Yon-Rogg, Annette Bening, Lashana Lynch as Maria Rambeau and Gemma Chan as Minn-Erva.

At a February 2019 press conference, Larson described what defined Carol:

“She doesn’t lay down. She gets back up.”

Brie Larson, February 2019

LOS ANGELES, LOUISIANA AND A FIRST FOR MARVEL MUSIC

HOW THE FILM WAS SHOT AND SCORED

Principal photography began on 19 March 2018 at Sony Studios in Los Angeles under the working title Open World, with other locations including Edwards Air Force Base and Simi Valley, then two weeks in Baton Rouge and New Orleans in late June. Filming ended on 6 July 2018, and the budget was between $152 million and $175 million. Pinar Toprak, who composed the score, was the first woman to score an MCU film.

THE YEAR’S BEST OPENING TO THAT POINT

HOW THE FILM OPENED AND WHAT IT EARNED

The film premiered in London on 27 February 2019 and opened in the US on 8 March. Its opening weekend brought in $153,433,423 in the US and more than $455 million worldwide, the best opening weekend of the year to that point and the sixth-highest worldwide debut ever. The original release earned $1.128 billion, making it the first female-led superhero film to pass $1 billion.

A mid-credits scene directed by the Russo brothers has Carol turning up looking for Fury after the Avengers pick up his pager signal, and a post-credits scene features Goose the cat.

THE REWATCH

A 79% CRITICS SCORE AND A DISPUTED AUDIENCE SCORE

Rotten Tomatoes lists a 79% critics’ score from 545 reviews and a 45% audience score from more than 100,000 ratings, and its consensus calls the film “packed with action, humor, and visual thrills.” The audience score was subject to review bombing. Metacritic gives the film 64 from 56 critics.

In the Marvel Marathon it sits in the MCU release order and MCU movies in order guides between Ant-Man and the Wasp and Avengers: Endgame, and in the Marvel movies in release order guide between Venom and Avengers: Endgame. In the MCU timeline guide it comes first, after Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter and before Iron Man, because it is set in 1995.