Captain Marvel is on her way. Marvel Studios continues to develop its first female-led superhero movie for release in 2018 (after what will have been 19 male-led superhero films for the studio, it’s about damn time), and it appears that they’ve zeroed in on the first piece of the puzzle for making Captain Marvel a reality: screenwriters. THR reports that Nicole Perlman, who co-wrote Guardians of the Galaxy, and Meg LeFauve, who co-wrote Pixar’s upcoming Inside Out, are in negotiations to pen the screenplay for Captain Marvel.

However, Marvel Studios is taking a unique approach in crafting this script. Apparently Marvel President Kevin Feige had met separately with Perlman and LeFauve about their takes on the property, but he liked both ideas so much that he’s combining the two for the finished film. This is similar to a different kind of development that’s becoming more commonplace in Hollywood, in which a studio commissions two separate scripts and then takes the best elements from both to create a Frankenstein-esque final version. In this case, though, the combo occurred organically, and Perlman and LeFauve will now be working side-by-side on the script.

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Image via Marvel

In the comics, Captain Marvel is an Air Force pilot named Carol Danvers who acquires superpowers after an accident in which her DNA is fused with that of an alien. An early draft of Avengers: Age of Ultron had Captain Marvel showing up at the end of the film, but Feige and Co. subsequently decided they didn’t want the character to appear in the MCU fully formed. It appears we’re in for an origin story, then.

The hiring of Perlman is a curious development. In the early days of Marvel Studios’ development, Perlman worked in their script program and chose Guardians of the Galaxy as her assignment. She penned a few drafts of the screenplay, but once James Gunn came aboard as director he performed a rewrite of his own. A kerfuffle ensued last year over exactly how much of Perlman’s initial script made it into the final product, but it appears that it’s all water under the bridge as far as Marvel Studios is concerned.


Apparently Marvel made an effort to hire female writers to bring Captain Marvel to the screen, so one has to wonder if they’ll do the same when it comes to finding the film’s director. Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow is really the only three-dimensional female character in the MCU at the moment (with plenty of credit due to Joss Whedon's script for The Avengers), so here’s hoping Captain Marvel adds another one to the fold. The film is slated for release on July 6, 2018.

For a refresher on all of Marvel’s confirmed releases, see below. And for a catalog of all upcoming superhero movie release dates, click here.

  • Avengers: Age of Ultron – May 1, 2015
  • Ant-Man – July 17, 2015
  • Captain America: Civil War – May 6, 2016
  • Doctor Strange - November 6, 2016
  • Guardians of the Galaxy 2 – May 5, 2017
  • Spider-Man Reboot – July 28, 2017
  • Thor: Ragnarok – November 3, 2017
  • Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1 – May 4, 2018
  • Black Panther – July 6, 2018
  • Captain Marvel – November 2, 2018
  • Avengers: Infinity War – Part 2 – May 3, 2019
  • Inhumans – July 12, 2019
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Image via Marvel Comics