Captain Marvel

Are you excited about seeing The Marvels, the mega-budget sequel to 2019’s billion-dollar grossing Captain Marvel? Judging by the advance box office predictions, not very many of you are. Current tracking has the film opening at around between $50 and $75 million on its first weekend. For most non-superhero franchise pictures, this would be excellent, but for a film that was budgeted at between $220 and $280 million, depending on whom you talk to, it has all the hallmarks of a colossal flop, capping off what has been a truly terrible year for Marvel Studios. It was never supposed to be this way.

Captain Marvel is a triumph. Finally, we have a female superhero! This is progress. This is new. This is fresh. This is terrifying men all over the planet. Not since Ghostbusters 2016 has a movie featured such a strong female lead. I literally cannot think of ONE other comic book-based movie which has a woman in the title role. I wonder why this is? Oh, I know, it’s because Hollywood hates women. The star of the movie, Brie Larson is also a superhero in real life. She bravely spoke out about the negative reviews A Wrinkly Time received, stating that too many white men had seen it. Now, as a black woman, I watched that film with tears in my eyes.

Is it still possible to talk about movies without mentioning superheroes? For the first three months of last year, Black Panther accounted for nearly a quarter of all domestic box office receipts. Eight of the top 20 highest grossing films of all time feature men and women who wear capes and fight crime. The consequence of ticket sales being increasingly concentrated among superhero movies is an increasing concentration of superhero movies. Today this feedback loop has dredged up another one: Captain Marvel. The modern superhero was born in the 1930s. Many of them – like Superman and Captain America – were anti-fascists who smacked Hitler around while fighting for ‘Truth, Justice and the American Way.