Captain Marvel is about to soar the skies of the MCU with actress Brie Larson in the role. But Emily Blunt, whose performance in 2014’s Edge of Tomorrow made her a fan-favorite choice for the Marvel superhero, was never contacted by Marvel’s producers to even discuss the possibility. Blunt’s episode is a rather familiar one when it comes to the history of superhero movie actors.
On Tuesday, Blunt told ScreenCrush that “no one ever called” about Captain Marvel. This was in spite of the fact that Blunt was a popular choice by fans, who made several “Who Should Play Captain Marvel?” lists from places like ScreenRant, CinemaBlend, and The Cheat Sheet.
“Oh, no, nobody ever called me about it,” Blunt told Screen Crush in an interview for her new horror film, A Quiet Place.
She then added “It was all untrue!”, referring to rumors that she was actually in the running. Blunt jokingly described her next role, Mary Poppins, as a superhero in Mary Poppins Returns releasing this Christmas. “I think Mary Poppins is a superhero, so I’ll just say that she’s my superhero … Listen, she can fly, she has superpowers, she’s magical. I’ll just go with Mary Poppins.”
Emily Blunt, at San Diego Comic-Con in 2013.
With the explosion of superhero movies, fan-casting is a popular genre of content that tries to guess the next move by a major studio. Sometimes, people get it right, in the case of IndieWire choosing Chadwick Boseman for Black Panther back in 2012, alongside actors like John Boyega, Anthony Mackie (who would later become the Falcon), and Chiwetel Ejiofor, who played Baron Mardo in Doctor Strange. Boseman was also a popular candidate from places like Syfy and Atlanta Black Star years before Black Panther was announced.
But many times, actors who are actually cast are actors who are the least obvious. Batman fans in the Eighties famously petitioned against Michael Keaton from playing the Dark Knight in Tim Burton’s film. Decades later, fans got mad again when Ben Affleck was cast for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
More recently, Jon Hamm was the popular fan vote for Captain America, until Chris Evans was announced. And before Tom Holland, the popular choice for Spider-Man was (and still is) Donald Glover, while others like Dylan O’Brien (from Teen Wolf) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (for some reason) were also tossed around on many people’s lists.
Even now, few fans guessed Brie Larson, who had won an Oscar for her role in the 2015 film Room months before she was announced as Captain Marvel. And maybe like Keaton and Evans, Larson will make the role her own to the point no one can imagine anyone else.
Captain Marvel will be released on March 6, 2019.
