High times
CO-DIRECTORS ANNA BODEN AND RYAN FLECK ON CAPTAIN MARVEL’S SUCCESS…
How did you celebrate when the film passed $1bn at the box office? ANNA BODEN: We high-fived. [laughs] RYAN FLECK: I don’t even think we were together. I think we might have emailed each other. E-high-fives.
The Blu-ray has six deleted scenes. Which were you saddest to lose?
RF: There’s a Yon-Rogg scene where he meets a version of the Supreme Intelligence, played by himself, where Jude [Law] was so deliciously evil and vulnerable in both roles in that scene. It was better for the pacing of the movie overall, but it was a tough one to cut.
Jude said he wanted to camp it up more but was reined in. Was that to keep the reveal a surprise?
AB: We didn’t want any telegraphing of where the story was going, for sure. But, in general, we had a film that had a lot of outrageous things happening, but the acting itself is clearly grounded and naturalistic within all that outrageousness, and we love that. It’s just being able to believe our characters, even when they’re wearing green prosthetic make-up and pointy ears.
The Skrulls rug-pull was an unexpected twist. Were you nervous about playing with the comic canon?
RF: No, not really. I think that’s part of the fun of subverting audience expectations. That’s something we look for in all the stories we tell. We look for the grey area – not just pure evil or pure good. That’s not to say… Not all Skrulls are good guys, just like not all humans are good guys. Moving forward, there is room for that conceptually to continue.
Goose is now one of the great cat characters. How difficult was he to work with?
RF: Reggie, who played Goose, was fantastic. And I have to say, we were dreading working with the cat, because cats are notorious for doing whatever the hell they want. But everything we asked of Goose and Reggie, they were able to do.
Were there any ’90s references you wanted to include that didn’t survive?
AB: Snap bracelets. We had a whole snap bracelet subplot that didn’t make it. [laughs]
RF: There was a Windows 95 tutorial that Carol looked at in the cyber café that we ended up cutting out of the movie, but that was really fun. You can find that online, actually: a Windows 95 tutorial with Jennifer Aniston.
How was it seeing Captain Marvel in Avengers: Endgame?
AB: We knew that our movie was teeing up her appearance in Endgame, so we were super-excited about it. The characters get to be different in their own movie than they are when they’re serving one of these huge character ensembles. But having gotten to know her in our movie, seeing her in that film is so fun, because you just know that when she comes, things are going to get shaken up. I mean, that shot with all the heroic, strong amazing women of the Marvel films – I teared up. That was intense. What’s next? Is there a Captain Marvel 2 in the offing?
AB: Right now, we are jumping into something wildly different. We’ve gone into more of a period drama for television [Mrs. America]. But, you know, we absolutely love Carol Danvers… Matt Maytum
‘IT’S ABOUT BEING ABLE TO BELIEVE THEM… WITH POINTY EARS’ ANNA BODEN