The Marvels finally hits theatres this week with the cosmic team-up between Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani), and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris).
The Marvel Studios release will tie Kamala Khan’s story from her Ms. Marvel Disney+ series into Monica Rambeau’s plot threads established in WandaVision and Captain Marvel as she becomes Photon. io9 recently sat down with The Marvels director Nia DaCosta (2021’s Candyman) to talk about bringing Carol into the fold with Kamala and Monica, whose similarly sourced superpowers bring them together in this film’s Marvel spectacle.
For DaCosta, it was something she and star Brie Larson were looking forward to tapping into. “Brie was so excited and a real advocate for bringing the two other women into the movie. And part of what I think works so well about it is that she has a foil. She finally has people who are, you know, heroes as well, and also having their own issues and issues with her or a specific relationship with her that she has to sort out,” DaCosta said, noting importance of demystifying Carol by having her face her legacy with a new hero like Kamala, as well as her past with Monica.
“We talked a lot about that dynamic, but also who she was when she’s not punching Thanos and running off,” DaCosta laughed, pointing out that at this point it’s a well-known fact that Carol keeps showing up, then blasting back off to her pad in space awaiting bigger galactic threats in order to stop them from reaching Earth. The film addresses that, the director explained. “The conversations are really just like, ‘Okay, who is she? How can her struggle holding the universe on her shoulders be something that can feel universal?’ For me, I think that a lot of women feel like they’re holding the world, their family, their job, everything on their shoulders. The thing that I come back to is how important family is to helping them get through that kind of burden. And so that’s the big theme in the movie. That’s something that Brie and I talked about as well.”
The Marvels opens November 9.
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