‘Captain Marvel’ Directors Explain Why Carol Danvers Never Officially Receives Her Superhero Name

Captain Marvel directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have explained the reasoning behind not referring to Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) by her superhero call sign. “I don’t think we set out to not call her Captain Marvel in the movie,” Fleck told the Empire Podcast, explaining Carol’s need “to come up with the name at some point by the end of the film” resulted in Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) slipping into The Marvelettes song ‘Please Mr. Postman.’

“Just a little, like a little kind of tease as to what’s to come, why her name is what it is,” added Boden.

The name is also borrowed from Carol’s mentor, the late Mar-Vell (Annette Bening), a Kree scientist posing as a high-ranking member of the United States Air Force. “Of course there’s Mar-Vell, she’s taking the mantle from her hero, Mar-Vell. But of course Nick Fury changes the pronunciation, slightly,” Fleck added with a laugh.

“And then you see at the end that she was Captain Carol Danvers, when [Fury] has her file at the very end,” Boden said. “So therefore, captain, it’s there if you want it, it’s there.”

Another large revelation comes when Fury learns Danvers’ call sign is “Avenger,” inspiring Fury to rename “The Protector Initiative” after his first superhero ally.

“The whole movie is about Captain Marvel inspiring Nick Fury to change his whole outlook and to make S.H.I.E.L.D. now a place that can deal with an entirely unexpected world that he didn’t know existed before,” Boden explained. “So in a way the whole movie is about how Captain Marvel inspires him to form the Avengers. So we just wanted to make it very specific at the end.”

Captain Marvel has now assimilated into the team she helped to inspire, where she’ll play a key role in the Avengers’ efforts to reverse the effects of Thanos’ (Josh Brolin) devastating snap that obliterated fifty percent of all life in the universe. It’s there Larson’s superhero could prove herself the mightiest of Earth’s mightiest heroes, ahead of Captain Marvel taking a central role in the ongoing Marvel saga.

“When we found out that Brie Larson might be interested in joining our world, we had a number of meetings,” said Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige in Captain Marvel: The Official Movie Special.

“She was a huge fan of the character in the comics. One of the highlights of my career at Marvel was introducing her at Comic-Con and having her come out on stage and stand there with literally almost everybody else from our movies. There she was at the forefront, and it was a great foreshadowing — not just for how audiences are going to embrace Brie as this character, but also for how Captain Marvel is about to take the lead and be at the forefront of the entire Cinematic Universe.”

Captain Marvel is now playing. Avengers: Endgame releases April 26.

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