SINGAPORE, Feb 15: “Captain Marvel” may be viewed as a preview to what lies ahead in “Avengers: Endgame” but film’s co-director Anna Boden says she and partner Ryan Fleck feel no kind of “commitment and responsibility” towards the follow-up to “Infinity War”.
The Brie Larson-fronted film gives a two-month release window to “Endgame”
and Boden says the duo were only focused on making “Captain Marvel”.
“Honestly, since they won’t tell us anything about ‘Avengers’? They have a lock and key on that, we feel no commitment and responsibility to that movie at all.
“We don’t know anything about it. We’re just focused on our movie,” she told PTI during a group interview.
Boden, who has collaborated with Fleck on indie films such as “Half Nelson” and “Mississippi Grind”, says working on “Captain Marvel” was a special experience which was driven with lots of responsibility.
“This is the first time we have written or directed a movie about a character so many people already have so many feelings about. It means so much to so many people. So there is a great responsibility in that. Luckily, it’s also a character that we love a lot.
“We, Brie and the team just tried to be as much true as we could to this character – ‘who she was’ and ‘what her journey was’. Hopefully, we bring that to the world and people embrace it. We just tried every step along the way to stay true to that,” she says.
Another Marvel wonder, “Black Panther” made history by becoming the first superhero film to be nominated for best picture Oscar and Fleck agrees that the genre is finally getting its due.
Boden says the film, which is now a cultural phenomenon, deserves all the recognition and accolades coming its way.
“We are huge ‘Black Panther’ fans. Ryan Coogler did such an amazing job directing that movie. We’re so thrilled for the recognition that it’s been getting. It is well deserved and so many of his collaborators did such a beautiful job on the movie,” she says.
Boden has become the first woman director to helm a Marvel superhero movie and she believes it is important to have female voices both behind and in front of the camera.
“There were a lot of women collaborators on this movie, particularly very early on in the writing process. We just appreciate all the women who have contributed to the film.
“There are lots of voices but thank goodness there are because we’ve never made a movie like this before. And these movies are so big and there are so many talented people who work on them. We need them all because it’s such a team effort,” she adds.
Fleck says he and Boden have been working together for two decades and they are equal partners.
“We are both very much equal collaborators. We have been that way for 20 years,” the director says.
He says working on “Captain Marvel” was akin to studying at ‘Marvel University’ ? “all expenses paid”.
Fleck says having more eyes and ears helped them navigate through the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a curriculum they were not well versed with.
“It’s a big team process at Marvel. So, we are used writing by the two of us and showing it to each other, giving each other feedback and then going and making that movie. It’s what we have done before. At Marvel, there are one or two more people involved. Uh… more than one or two frankly… But it was great,” he quips.
“We worked with other writers on the movie as well. In terms of the freedom, sure, it starts off with a lot of freedom and as we open it up to the team, we learn that there are things that may have written in the first draft that are happening in one-two movies from or happened 10 movies ago. So we’re not as versed as the Marvel staff are in the history of the MCU and they know where it’s been. They are great guides for the process,” he adds.
Boden says the chemistry between Larson and Samuel L Jackson’s Nick Fury is one of highlights of the film.
“They have worked on two movies together prior to this one and just came onto the sets with this pre-existing relationship. It’s funny, because we showed the script to Sam first time we met him and we hadn’t met him before. And he said ‘It feels like you have written our relationship in this script’.
“They have that kind of poking fun at each other humour between them and it really comes across on the screen. It’s an important part of the movie.”
Also featuring Gemma Chan, Jude Law, Annette Bening, Ben Mendelsohn and others, ?Captain Marvel? hits Indian theatres on March 8. (PTI)
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