It seems like now that Wonder Woman struck a chord with audiences, Marvel is trying to get Captain Marvel in gear and off the ground. Case in point, the casting of Jude Law as Mar-Vell, a Kree alien who was the original Captain Marvel before Carol Danvers got the title.
According to sources, Law will be playing Mar-Vell who goes under the alias of Dr. Walter Lawson, who will act as mentor to Carol Danvers, played by Brie Larson, as she becomes used to her powers. We’ve already seen the Kree in Guardians of the Galaxy, so it will be interesting to see how one got to Earth. There’s no word yet if Mar-Vell will still be the original Captain Marvel or if he will just be acting as a mentor-figure. Jude Law is having quite a time in 2017, as he is also cast as young Dumbledore in the Fantastic Beasts series.
The film’s plot will follow Carol Danvers, an Air Force pilot who gets her DNA altered in an alien encounter, and gets super powers as a result. Ben Mendelsohn is also signed on to the film to play the currently-unnamed villain. According to producer Kevin Feige, Captain Marvel was supposed to make an appearance in the film Avengers: Age of Ultron but was pulled because “We didn’t want to introduce her fully-formed flying in a costume before you got to know who she was and how she came to be.”
Geneva Robertson-Dworet is writing the screenplay after the original writers, Nicole Perlman and Meg LeFauve, left the project. The film will be directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, most famous for their work on Half Nelson. Filming begins sometime in January or February of 2018. It’s timing is spot on, given that it should come out just before Avenger: Infinity Wars in May 2019, which will likely mean major changes for the cinematic universe.
Captain Marvel is currently set to hit theaters on March 8, 2019.