With the DC Comics film Birds of Prey delivering the first all-female, cinematic superhero team, there’s been renewed talk about having various heroines in the Marvel Cinematic Universe join forces in a similar matter. As Scarlet Witch actress Elizabeth Olsen sees it, putting this kind of team together would be a great way to highlight some of these ladies in a similar way to how their male counterparts have been. In Olsen’s words:
I think people really love these characters. I feel like all the men in Marvel movies have done such a brilliant job with satisfying a lot of things our audiences want, and they're funny and they're talented. And so are all the women, and to give them more screen time, I think, would be a huge impact, because comics aren't just for boys who want to watch other big boys.
Elizabeth Olsen then added in her interview with AM2DM by Buzzfeed News that she’s seen firsthand at conventions that there are plenty of women who like superheroes and comic books. While enjoying such things might have once been stereotypically assumed to be a male-only pastime, that’s been proven to be incorrect. And thanks to the success of the Marvel movies and various other comic book adaptations over the last 10-20 years, this fanbase is bigger than ever.
There definitely isn't any shortage of heroines in the MCU who could come together in their own movie. From Scarlet Witch and Captain Marvel to Nebula and Valkyrie, they would make for a formidable force. An A-Force even, assuming the MCU brass would want to draw inspiration from the same-named comic series that was published earlier this decade.
Granted, the major MCU heroines (with the exception of Black Widow; RIP, Natasha) were among the many individuals who fought Thanos and his army in Avengers: Endgame’s climactic third act, and they even got their own sequence to shine. But it’d still be special to see a smaller scale team-up where some of these characters can deal with a threat that, while not necessarily as grave as what the Mad Titan planned to do, still requires them to jump into action together.
Elizabeth Olsen certainly isn’t the only MCU actress who has advocated for a female-led Marvel movie. Tessa Thompson, Brie Larson, Zoe Saldana, Scarlett Johansson, Pom Klementieff and Karen Gillan met with Marvel Studio president Kevin Feige about such a project sometime in 2017. More recently, Larson said she and her fellow actresses are still passionate about the idea, but the wait continues to see if Feige and the leadership choose to move forward it it.
For now, the MCU finally has one female-led movie under its belt with this year’s Captain Marvel, although Evangeline Lilly’s Hope van Dyne got co-billing alongside Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang in 2018’s Ant-Man and the Wasp. Next year, we’ll turn the clock back to explore Natasha Romanoff’s life in between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War in Black Widow, and Captain Marvel 2 is in development.
Let’s also not forget about the Disney+ shows, which are being billed as equally important to the MCU movies. Elizabeth Olsen is co-starring alongside Paul Bettany in WandaVision, which will tie into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and see the lead characters living in a sitcom-like world, and Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk will each get their own series.
Keep up to date on what’s being lined up for the big screen side of the MCU with our comprehensive guide.
