THE POWER OF THREE

A triple threat of the MCU’s most powerful women unite in The Marvels. Total Film meets the filmmakers to find out how Carol Danvers, Monica Rambeau, and Kamala Khan will contend with a formidable new foe, unexpected power-swaps and flerkens galore.

- KIM TAYLOR-FOSTER

The sequel to 2019’s Captain Marvel is poised to photon-blast onto screens imminently. Except it’s not called Captain Marvel 2. Or Captain Marvel: Saviour of the Universe [insert punchy subtitle of your choosing], come to that, unlike fellow Marvel Cinematic Universe heroes Iron Man, Thor, Spider-Man and Captain America whose multiple sequels have titles that all begin with their very singular names.

Instead of giving Captain Marvel solo billing in the follow-up to the 1995-set sojourn into Carol Danvers’ history, three characters take centre-stage under the banner The Marvels – Danvers herself, aka Captain Marvel (Brie Larson); Danvers superfan Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani), and Danvers’ estranged honorary niece and goddaughter, Monica Rambeau, aka Photon (Teyonah Parris). Is this a case of attempting to strengthen the film’s chances out of concern that audiences won’t go and see, or like, a second solo Captain Marvel movie? Indeed, the first was negatively review-bombed by misogynistic haters three weeks before it was even released and star Larson became the target of online trolling.

The answer is a resounding no. Captain Marvel went on to gross more than $1.1bn worldwide – the first woman-led superhero movie to top the billion-dollar mark. But the film’s composer, Laura Karpman, whose work on Disney+ MCU series Ms. Marvel has also just been nominated for a gong, perhaps says it best when describing her work on the score.