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Credit: Marvel StudiosJust last week, Kevin Feige’s Marvel Studios gave audiences their first look at the upcoming Captain Marvel 2. And despite the sequel not releasing for another seven months, Disney+ history has just been made regarding The Marvels cast.
Director Nia DaCosta’s follow-up to Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s Captain Marvel (2019) is finally coming this year. Since Brie Larson’s first appearance as the titular superhero, Carol Danvers has appeared in Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), alongside Captain America (Chris Evans) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), as well as Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021). This year, the character will co-headline her own sequel alongside Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel and best friend Maria Rambeau’s (Lashana Lynch) daughter, Monica Rambeau/Photon, played by Iman Vellani and Teyonah Parris, respectively.
Information regarding The Marvels (2023) is still being kept tight to Marvel Studios’ chest. Still, the teaser trailer sees Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, and Photon locked in some kind of cosmic-powered event where they must face off against Zawe Ashton’s menacing gender-swapped Kree general, Dar-Benn, complete with Ronan the Accuser’s famous hammer.
The Marvels will be the third movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe released in 2023, following Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023). The former went down in history for all the wrong reasons after it was released in mid-February. The Paul Rudd-led escapade to the Quantum Realm, and the first major appearance of Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror, gave Marvel one of its lowest Rotten Tomatoes scores in history as well as its most significant loss at the global box office.
Related: Marvel Fans Are Dislike Bombing ‘The Marvels’ Trailer For Being “Woke”
All eyes will be on James Gunn’s third — and final — outing for the disparate group of misfits, the Guardians of the Galaxy, this May.
While superhero fatigue is definitely a factor in the underperformance and low excitement for movies like those in the MCU and even in the DC Universe, there was a frenzy of hope when Marvel Studios dropped the first teaser for The Marvels.
And now The Marvels cast just surprisingly made Disney+ history.
The Marvels Cast
As reported by The Direct, the official billing of The Marvels sees Brie Larson joined as lead by Iman Vellani and Teyonah Parris. This marks the first time in Disney+ history that two characters who came into the MCU as leads in a Disney+ show — Vellani in Ms. Marvel and Parris in WandaVision — will star as main characters in a franchise movie.
Other characters have appeared in movies following debuts in Disney+ TV shows; take Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, for example, who starred as Valentina Allegra du Fontaine in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier before appearing in the post-credits scene of Black Widow (2021) — the first feature film of Marvel Phase Four.
Related: The ‘Captain Marvel’ Sequel Is Scrapping Original ‘Avengers’ Elements From Films
This top-billing is a huge moment for the MCU as the film shatters the glass ceiling with three women in leading roles. Also joining Larson, Vellani, and Parris, in that top-billed slot are Zawe Ashton and Park Seo-joon. The Marvels also has one of the most diverse top-billed casts to date.
The Marvels is set to be released on November 10, 2023. It will debut after the June release of Secret Invasion, which brings back Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury, Cobie Smulders’ Maria Hill, and Ben Mendelsohn’s Skrull Talos. Talos was first introduced in Captain Marvel, and his daughter G’iah will also feature in Secret Invasion, this time portrayed by Game of Thrones alum Emilia Clarke.
Are you looking forward to The Marvels? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!