Credit: Marvel StudiosIman Vellani has quickly become the darling of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its fandom since her breakout role in the Disney+ series Ms. Marvel last year. However, the MCU newcomer may be proving herself to be more of a pain to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige than he expected her to be with her recent comments.
Vellani took the world by storm last year with her debut acting role as Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel in the MCU streaming series. Since headlining her own series, she’s teamed up with Brie Larson (Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel) and Teyonah Parris (Monica Rambeau) in The Marvels, the latest release from the superhero studio. (Warning for slight spoilers ahead.) The end of the film also saw her take on a Nick Fury-esque role as she tracked down Kate Bishop/Hawkeye (played by Hailee Steinfeld) to ask her to join the Young Avengers. Clearly, Vellani has a major future ahead of her in the MCU, which is fitting.
Before she was a Marvel actress, Vellani was a major Marvel fan. Similar to her character Kamala, Vellani followed Marvel Comics and the MCU and still prides herself on knowing the storylines and characters better than even Feige himself. She’s gone head to head with the Marvel boss, arguing about with universe the MCU technically is (Feige claims it’s Earth-616 while Vellani claims it’s Earth-199999) and about various plot points.
She’s recently joked about “taking it easy” when arguing with Feige in the hopes that the studio will green light a second season of Ms. Marvel, which was a surprising hit for the studio’s television division last year. However, Vellani has once again proven herself to be a fan first and foremost with her latest comments following the disappointing performance of The Marvels.
The studio has been struggling all around with its recent releases, with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Secret Invasion, and The Marvels all seeing majorly disappointing responses following their releases this year. With cries of “superhero fatigue” and a focus on “quantity over quality,” Marvel has been forced to take several steps back and revisit their internal structure and focus on various projects. It’s led to an apparent entire overhaul of their streaming and television department as well as a changing of the writing staff for the upcoming Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars.
It’s led to a loss of faith in the once-powerful studio, with fans starting to lose interest and hype about upcoming projects. Vellani agreed, and in a recent interview with The Direct, shared her thoughts on what the studio can do to regain the hype and interest it once had. And she didn’t hold back either.
“I think it’s just about making the audience care about their characters. And I think they’ve established so many wonderful characters in the last phase of the MCU that it would be nice to see them all again and see them team up.”
Instead of continuing to get “bigger and bigger,” the Ms. Marvel star said, the studio needs to focus back on developing their characters and making fans care about the individuals again. Part of the charm that the first few phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was that, despite knowing the films were building up to The Avengers and Endgame, the individual films still took time to develop the characters as people, rather than cameos.
The recent releases after Endgame, especially Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) as well as the various Disney+ series seem to have shifted focus to including character cameos and building the multiverse. Each recent release has several projects’ worth of required viewing in order to understand the plot and the characters.
- You have to watch WandaVision to understand Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
- You have to watch Loki to understand Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
- You have to watch WandaVision, Ms. Marvel, and Secret Invasion to understand The Marvels
While many of the films leading up to 2012’s Avengers movie was also “required” viewing, as well as most of the movies leading up to Infinity War, it didn’t feel quite so forced or exhausting. Vellani further explained her argument, saying that with so many new characters being introduced, people want to see an actual team-up movie rather than a bunch of cameos in standalone films. She also brought up the Thursday and midnight movie premieres that seem to have disappeared with with 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, or at least don’t exist the same way they once did.
Each Marvel release now seems to be trying to have the same big blockbuster feel that Endgame had without any of the buildup or investment that the films prior to that did. With Vellani a fan of the films and the comics, as well as her proven ability to fight for the franchise, it’s possible she could be the voice of the fans, encouraging Marvel Studios and Feige to bring some individuality and care back to the franchise in order to get fans to care about their characters once again. As Vellani steps up to fill a Samuel L. Jackson/Nick Fury-sized shoe with the Young Avengers, it’s possible that she could be the very thing to help turn the franchise back around.
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