With all of the forward movement for female characters going on in the Marvel Comics world, it's hard not to wonder if any of that movement is going to cross over into the realm of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While we're hearing more about prominent female leads in the ensemble driven The Avengers: Age Of Ultron, the eventuality is this: we're going to want a female superhero to be showcased in their own origin film and subsequent franchise sooner rather than later. Apparently, Marvel knew this day would come eventually, and it looks like they're already making movement on granting audiences that very wish!
Time Magazine recently ran a profile on Nicole Perlman, the first female writer to be credited on a Marvel Studios picture. In that profile, they discussed her path to working on Guardians Of The Galaxy. As it turns out, she actually got to pick the assignment from a pool of potential projects that Marvel wanted to develop. She explained,
"I can’t tell you what the other titles were that they were offering up on the table, but I can tell you that one of them was a little bit more appropriate for me, just based on gender. I think they were a little taken aback when I chose Guardians, because there were ones that would make a lot more sense if you were a romantic-comedy writer or something like that."
So not only was Marvel Studios thinking about Guardians Of The Galaxy a good couple of years ahead of the game, they've also been looking into developing female lead properties for about as long. Seeing as Guardians Of The Galaxy was announced at Comic Con 2012, let's assume that the script was proposed in 2011. So during the Phase 2 preparations, Nicole Perlman chose Guardians Of The Galaxy as her project, with the female lead projects being either passed onto other writers or sitting waiting for assignment.
Seeing as Marvel Studio's master plan is has a timeline reaching to 2028 and release dates set through 2019 , it's looking more and more likely that a female-centric super hero movie is going to be announced any moment now. With five unannounced titles open on their calendar between now and 2019 (six if you don't believe The Avengers 3 is going to be one of those unknown titles,) a woman-led comic book movie seems extremely likely for the MCU's near future.
Knowing that Marvel has already been moving the pieces around to bring a female hero to the big screen and tried to get a female writer on board to do so is not only refreshing, but also comforting. If a big company like Marvel Studios becomes more progressive about hiring female writers to make female movies, then there's a good chance that others will follow by example (though it would also be nice to see a woman in the director's chair). Of course, there's still one question we've been avoiding this whole time - which female heroes were on that list? My guess is Ms. Marvel is definitely one of the names.
Here's hoping we find out more in the coming months ahead, but in the meantime you can look out for Guardians Of The Galaxy, which hits theaters on Thursday at midnight.
