With Kevin Feige recently hinting that a Carol Danver-fronted Captain Marvel movie would be 'pretty cool,' we're dedicating an article to backing him up.
Lets face it, the combined efforts of studios that are bringing comic book characters to life have made to this current era of filmmaking extra special. Comic book IPs do more than make certain companies a ton of money, they also broaden our expectations of what is or can be considered movie material. On the bright side, films based on popular videogames are a bit more reasonable, but we have to take one for the team in terms of 50 Shades of Grey (will that utterly destroy the Still a better story than Twilight meme? I hope not.) the movie. The massive popularity of these somewhat new film genres, or genres regarded as more legitimate also bolsters Hollywoods ability to make strides in terms of modern filmmaking. One such long overlooked issue was recently given a stronger voice by none other than Cate Blanchett in her Academy Awards acceptance speech, where she made it clear to the powers that be that women can make films that earn money too. Shes right you now, and now she needs a studio to prove it. Correction, we need a studio to prove it, so that we can get even better movies. It turns out that Marvel Studios might just be on deck with a recent hint by Kevin Feige that Captain Marvel featuring a character named Carol Danvers could be on the horizon. Here are 10 Reasons why that would be awesome. Broken into two major headings, the obvious reasons and the not so obvious reasons.
10. Finally, A Major Studio Can Fully Support A Female-Driven Film And Expect Success
Lets have a look at the best example we have of the disparity between male and female driven films within the genre we love so much. The first 3 Superman films starring Christopher Reeve cost an estimated (combined) $148 Million. Out of the three, the least funded was the final film at an estimated $39 million. While still turning a decent profit, it was considered unsuccessful based on the performances of the first two films. However Supergirl, which came out a year later, and had the perspective of seeing all the things the first three films did that worked and did not work, was made for 4 million dollars less than Superman III. Its telling that the lack of success of both Superman III and Supergirl we never blamed on them being under-funded, but because of the performance of Richard Pryor (in Superman III) and the fact that Supergirl was in fact a girl. Its telling that despite the official lines, Pryor would immediately sign a $40 Million dollar movie deal, and Helen Slater would go on to star in some of the most beloved movies with several strong cult followings. Marvel/Disney has the money, they have the fanfare, and they have built dominant female supporting characters to set the stage for a woman to take the center of it, and this is before we see Zoe Saldana as The deadliest woman in the whole galaxy (thats a tough title to get, believe me Ive tried). All you need is the perfect character to start with