How ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Team Approached “Uber-Powerful” Captain Marvel

As the Russo Brothers work with Captain Marvel is guaranteed to be seen by the time Avengers 4 comes to an end, the sibling directors and screenwriters for their films have specific approaches to Brie Larson’s heroine.

Anthony and Joe Russo are electing to stay quiet on whether or not Captain Marvel will appear in Avengers: Infinity War, as the world will definitively find out when the movie hits theaters on Friday. However, while speaking to ComicBook.com in an exclusive interview, they explained both the obstacles they faced while bringing the character into their film(s) and where their focus was when bringing her to life.

“Well for us, with super powerful characters, it’s always about the flaw in the character, how is the character human? How is the character accessible?” Joe Russo said. “I have a hard time with comic book characters, I did as a child, that were too powerful because I never feared for them, I never felt like I could relate to them. I think that’s why traditionally Batman is the most popular DC comic character, he’s human. So, it’s important for us when we’re working with uber-powerful characters, to understand their vulnerability on a psychological level.”

Anthony Russo chimed in to add on to that point. “And that’s of course, and then we follow, the way we challenge a character like that is taking them through scenarios that make things more complicated on that vulnerability,” he said. “And challenge that vulnerability.”

“Or can we weaken them in some way in which they have to overcome that weakness to succeed,” Joe Russo concluded.

Originally, signs pointed to Captain Marvel making her Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in Avengers: Infinity War. While on set of the ensemble film, ComicBook.com was told by Joe Russo that she was “in the movie.” However, with Avengers: Infinity War and its Untitled Avengers 4 sequel having filmed back to back, there may have been a bit of confusing. At San Diego Comic Con in July of 2017, Joe Russo told ComicBook.com, “[Captain Marvel is] not in Avengers 3.”

Either way, bringing the character to life posed its challenges to for the Avengers movies, as the films screenwriters were ready to admit.

“I mean, we were somewhat at sea a little bit in that… not at sea in a bad way, but her movie had not been written yet,” Christopher Markus said. “And so you want it to all tie together. You don’t wanna write a Captain Marvel that bears no resemblance to one who has her own movie coming out.”

The writers wanted to be sure she was not “so vague,” as Markus put it, that she “would not register” in her standalone film, McFeely points out.

“So we had to make a decision, in our movie she is going to be this, and she’s going to serve this function, and she’ll sound like this,” McFeely said. “And hopefully that will make sense with what the Marvel team wants to do.”

There is good news the writers will share with comic fans, however. “We took some cues from the comics,” Markus said. “She is military, and there’s a certain authority that comes with that.”

Taking place 30 years prior to Avengers: Infinity War, Captain Marvel will be an origin story for the character — meaning she was always going to be quite different between the appearances. Still, the writers were unaware of such a fact while crafting their version. “Regardless of what her movie was gonna be, and again we didn’t know what it was at the time, we knew that she’d probably would be fully formed by the this time she got to our movie, and given what that means for her, we figured she’d be pretty confident,” McFeely said. “That’s a person with a lot of power, more powerful than anybody in the room, right? So, what does that mean compared to the other characters. There was some delight to that.”

Avengers: Infinity War hits theaters on April 27, 2018. Have questions about ComicBook.com’s time on set or at the press events? Leave them in the comment section or send them to @BrandonDavisBD on Twitter!