‘Captain Marvel’ Directors Reveal How Stan Lee’s Cameo Changed After His Death

Captain Marvel directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck reveal they updated Stan Lee’s cameo after the visionary Marvel Comics creator died in November.

When Starforce member Vers (Brie Larson) finds herself on C-53 — Earth — in 1995 Los Angeles in pursuit of a shapeshifting Skrull, she suspiciously eyes train passengers, except for one: a kindly old man reading a line for the Kevin Smith-penned Mallrats and rehearsing his it, saying, “Trust me, true believer.”

Vers meets eyes with Lee, and she smiles: he’s no Skrull.

“Instead of just the pure laugh we had, we had a little bit of a smile from Captain Marvel in response to it, and she kind of breaks character for a moment,” Boden told Mashable. “I think it reflects a little bit of what the audience is feeling, and we allowed that to happen.”

Captain Marvel opens with a Lee-themed Marvel Studios montage paying tribute to more than a decade’s worth of cameos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, followed by a simple message of text: “Thank you Stan.”

The directing duo don’t take credit for the homage, but backed it as soon as they learned of the tribute.

“The Marvel logo was a Marvel thing that they presented to us,” Fleck said. “They said, ‘Hey guys, what do you think of this? We were thinking of doing this for the movie.’ And we were just like—”

“Loved. We cried,” Boden said. Fleck added the pair “were just moved by it.”

“We feel really lucky to have gotten the opportunity to meet him, and have that special moment on set,” Boden said of Lee, who co-created with Jack Kirby the Skrull and Kree alien races heavily involved in Captain Marvel. “There’s so much reverence when he comes around, and he brings so much life and respect there with him.”

Captain Marvel is now playing.

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