UPDATED: Marvel Studios Executive Talks CAPTAIN MARVEL (a.k.a. MS. MARVEL) Film and its Future




Ever since The Avengers hit big in theaters last summer, Marvel Studios has been talking about expanding the diversity of their superhero movie universe. Specifically, expanding the race and gender of their leading characters.

Adding a larger role for Pepper Potts in Iron Man 3 was a starting point earlier this year for Phase 2. Next up is giving more screen time to Jane Foster and Heimdall in this November's Thor: The Dark World. Next year Falcon, who is Marvel's first African-American superhero, will join Captain America: The Winter Soldier. And finally, fans will be introduced to Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy as well as the Scarlet Witch in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Plus, don't forget about all the rumors circulating about a potential Black Panther solo film in Phase 3. There is obviously a push for more diversity which is also a way to grow their movie audience.

Marvel Studios director and producer Louis D'Esposito spoke with ComingSoon.net and talked about bringing more girl power to the big screen and highlighted Ms. Marvel (technically he said Captain Marvel, same girl though), who could be the studio's first standalone female superhero franchise post-Avengers: Age of Ultron and in one of their untitled movie release slots for 2016 or 2017.

"There's obviously a drumbeat that is banging louder and louder that we want a female lead superhero. We have strong female characters in our films from Black Widow to Pepper Potts to Peggy Carter and you never know. Maybe there's an offshoot film with one of them. Or Captain Marvel, you know? 
"It's hard because we have a small group at Marvel. We do two films a year. To get those two films done and to do them right takes a lot of work and manpower. And female-power, obviously. To add a third film and to just put it in the slate right now is difficult. We have these next three, four, five films coming out and that's what we're really concentrating on."

It is important to note that D'Esposito is the director of Marvel's newest one-shot short film Agent Carter, which releases exclusively on the Iron Man 3 Blu Ray on September 24. Because of D'Esposito's fantastic and amazing job at directing Agent Carter (The Daily SuperHero saw it at SDCC 2013), there is no reason to not believe he is one of the executives who is at the forefront of the push for a Ms. Marvel or Captain Marvel standalone movie.

UPDATE: Female actor Katee Sackhoff recently hinted that she spoke with Marvel and the studio asked about her availability in the first quarter of 2014. This is during the time frame when Avengers: Age of Ultron is set to begin production. D'Esposito has also mentioned that writer/director Joss Whedon is still finalizing the ensemble films' script.

In other words, the story is very fluid right now and changing. The fact D'Esposito is talking Ms. Marvel and Sackhoff and Marvel are talking about availability during the scheduled Avengers 2 production time, all leads to the possibility Sackhoff may be in talks to be Ms. Marvel. Could she be introduced in Whedon's Avengers 2 script? (Lots of speculation with this right now.)