MCU: 10 Things You Might Not Know About CAPTAIN MARVEL

You know anything about Geek Dave blowing up a Blockbuster?

1. Before Brie Larson was cast as Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel, several other high profile actresses had been considered for the role, including Jessica Chastain and Charlize Theron. Another actress who was consistently linked with the part across trade papers and the internet after the film was announced was Emily Blunt. Heavily rumoured to be the frontrunner for the role, Blunt had previously been offered the part of Black Widow for Iron Man 2 but withdrew from the film due to scheduling commitments. Turns out all those rumours about her suiting up for Captain Marvel were false as Emily Blunt herself confirmed,

"Oh, no, nobody ever called me about it. [Laughs] It was all untrue!"

2. Brie Larson's casting wasn't exactly met with universal acclaim. One of the stranger things people (read internet trolls) seemed quite irate about was that Larson was too young for the role of Carol Danvers. At 26 when she was cast, and 28 when Captain Marvel was released, it was often raised that she could not be an accomplished airman that young, so screenwriter Nicole Perlman consulted with the Air Force who said it was possible for someone to excel between the ages of 28 and 34. Fitting Larson's age at the time of release.

To aid authenticity, Jeannie Leavitt, the U.S. Air Force's first female fighter pilot, was bought in as consultant on Captain Marvel, and Larson visited Nellis Air Force Base and met with active duty airmen, including real life decorated air force pilots Matthew "Spider" Kimmel and Thunderbirds pilot Major Stephen "Cajun" Del Bagno, in preparation for the role. The pair also appear as themselves in the film. Del Bagno sadly died months prior to Captain Marvel's release, and so the film was dedicated to his memory.

3. Set in 1995, Captain Marvel takes place two decades before most of the other films which make up Marvel's Infinity Saga, which culminated in Avengers: Endgame. Even though Captain Marvel, as the 21st film in the marvel Cinematic Universe, was released two months before Endgame it was actually filmed after the latter story's concluding event.

Avengers: Endgame wrapped principal photography on January 11th 2018 (although some pick-up shots and reshoots took place at various points over the next year) with Captain Marvel starting filming two weeks after that. Meaning that not only did Brie Larson already had one movie as Carol Danvers under her superhero-belt before filming her character's debut outing, but that the mid-credits teaser for Avengers: Endgame was the first scene in the Captain Marvel film to have been shot (as it was done by the Russo brothers for inclusion in Endgame).

4. In the comic books, Carol Danvers' cat is called Chewie (named after the Star Wars character Chewbacca) whereas in the film he was renamed Goose, which is much more appropriate as a nod to the film Top Gun and the character Nick "Goose" Bradshaw.

Goose himself was actually portrayed by four different cats, each chosen for their actions and personality: Reggie, Archie, Rizzo and Gonzo.

5. However, regardless of which cat it was, Brie Larson hardly appeared on set with any of them. She's violently allergic to cats, as she explained,

"It became this joke because the crew would watch me all day doing crazy stunts. I did that ropes course stunt 50 feet up in the air on the first week. I threw [a stunt person] in a judo throw on a moving train, day two. But then the cat showed up on set and I was like, “We need to have a plan! We need to have a conversation!” I see cat hair flying, [and] I’ve got maybe 10 minutes before I break out in hives."

Come up with a plan they did, and just about all of Larson's scenes involving Goose were filmed with a puppet or computer-generated VFX.

6. Above Larson mentions when she threw a stunt person during the train fight. That was Heidi Moneymaker, stunt double for Marilyn Brett who plays the old lady. Throughout the production, Brie Larson's stunt double is Renae Moneymaker, Heidi's sister. So although Larson performed some close up shots for the fight, for the vast majority of it there are two real life sisters fighting each other throughout the sequence.

7. Director Anna Boden revealed that when Carol Danvers was in the Blockbuster store she was meant to shoot the head off a cardboard cut-out of Jim Carrey's character from The Mask.

"We really wanted it to be The Mask, because of the green head... The idea is that she thinks it's a Skrull. We initially tried to get that but they wouldn't clear it."

Yep, they couldn't get the rights to use a still image of Stanley Ipkiss, aka The Mask, but put a call in to Arnold Schwarzennegger who had no issue at all with having his head blown off!

8. Towards the end of the film, Nick Fury tells Goose, "I'm trusting you not to eat me," and then shortly afterwards Goose scratches Fury, causing him to lose his left eye and we discover how he got his eye-patch.

This is a callback to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a movie set two decades later but filmed five years before Captain Marvel, where Fury tells Captain America, "Last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye."

9. In February 2019, Marvel launched the official website for Captain Marvel and it's a joy to behold. That is if you want a trip back to the early days of the internet. It's still operational here, wonderfully emulating design from the 1990s, including HTML frames, a mix of rainbow fonts, pixelated GIFs, a hit counter, a guestbook, and a low-resolution trailer framed inside a window resembling Real Player.