History has shown that putting too many villains into a superhero movie is never the greatest of ideas, but looking at the multi-billion success enjoyed by each of the four Avengers epics, the Marvel Cinematic Universe certainly knows a thing or two about packing its cast with a huge number of heroes.
The approach is being replicated on a smaller scale in Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels, which is set to feature Teyonah Parris’ Monica Rambeau and Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan in major roles, so much so that the decision was made to avoid the standard MCU template of naming Brie Larson’s solo sequel as Captain Marvel: Insert Subtitle Here.
During an interview with Inverse, DaCosta teased how the two new title characters will factor into the story, and the delicate balancing act required to ensure that none of the trio are left feeling narratively short-changed.
“It’s interesting, and something we thought about and worked through a lot, which was how do we get each of these really big, exciting heroes space in a two-hour film. Captain Marvel has a history from the first film, Kamala will have her Ms. Marvel show, and Monica Rambeau, we’ve only seen her a little bit in WandaVision. A lot of what we’ve been thinking about is what part of the journey do we need to see for each of them? How do we honor the part of the story they’re at in terms of the canon, while also within our story making them equal?”
We know there’s plenty of history between Carol Danvers and Monica, and tension between the two was teased in WandaVision, but we won’t get a real grasp of how Ms. Marvel fits into the cosmic blockbuster until her solo series wraps up on Disney Plus next year, although we’ll have a lot more time to ruminate after The Marvels was hit with a delay as part of the recent Phase Four reshuffle.