Captain Marvel writer teases Carol Danvers as a sassy, funny superhero

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

The films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have always contained a note of comedy in their DNA, but the latest phase of the MCU has embraced that aspect more than ever, and it seems that the upcoming CAPTAIN MARVEL will continue that tradition. Geneva Robertson-Dworet, who penned the CAPTAIN MARVEL screenplay, recently spoke with Entertainment Weekly where she revealed that her take on the Marvel hero actually began to come together when she was tasked with writing the upcoming TOMB RAIDER film.

When the TOMB RAIDER reboot was first being developed, Geneva Robertson-Dworet said that it was going to be more of a fun action-comedy which would focus on Lara Croft as a teenager, but when Alicia Vikander boarded the project, it took on a more serious tone. "The mandate I got when I first signed on to the project was that we were doing something much more in the tone of sort of…. a fun action-comedy," Robertson-Dworet said. "My original Lara was very sassy, and then, over the subsequent drafts as Alicia gained more creative control, she wanted it to be much more serious." When CAPTAIN MARVEL came calling, the screenwriter began putting those TOMB RAIDER ideas to good use.

Captain Marvel has a very funny voice, and it’s more of an action-comedy, more like what we were talking about doing in the first draft I wrote for Tomb Raider…. [but] that tone survived in Captain Marvel. I love funny female characters, so as Tomb Raider got more serious, I got even more committed to the idea of Captain Marvel being hilarious.

Geneva Robertson-Dworet added that she's not reinventing the character, as Carol Danvers has always been "one of the funniest comic book characters. She’s so sassy, she’s such a smartass, she won’t take sh— from anyone, and the comic books do an amazing job at capturing that voice, and it was important that the entire Captain Marvel creative team [kept to that]. I’m hoping that sassy, funny superhero [in the film] is something people haven’t seen before, and that they’re going to be excited to see in Carol Danvers. A lot of the great Captain Marvel comic books really broke ground with Carol Danvers’ voice, and that’s something we want to continue with the movie." CAPTAIN MARVEL is currently in production under the direction of Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck, and will star Brie Larson, Jude Law, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Gemma Chan, and DeWanda Wise.

During San Diego Comic-Con last year, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said that CAPTAIN MARVEL would take place in the 1990's and find Carol Danvers battling the Skrulls, a race of alien shapeshifters. As CAPTAIN MARVEL will be taking place before much of what we've seen in the MCU, Samuel L. Jackson has said that we'll see Nick Fury with both of his eyes. "We’re going back now, and I meet Captain Marvel in more of an origin story," Jackson said. "You’ll see Nick Fury with another guy’s face, somebody that’s got two eyes, so that’s a whole big deal. You’ll see. It’s prior to the eye injury, no eye patch." It's likely we'll see just how Nick Fury was injured in CAPTAIN MARVEL, but for now, we've just got Fury's explanation from CAPTAIN AMERICA: WINTER SOLDIER to go on; "Last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye."

CAPTAIN MARVEL will hit theaters on March 8, 2019.