Let’s face it, there are a whole lot of Marvel movies coming before we finally get to see their attempt at a female-led superhero films in Captain Marvel, and while many of those other movies are sure to be fantastic, this project by far stands as one of the most interesting and important ones on the docket. Granted, DC is beating them to the punch a little bit by getting Wonder Woman out in 2017 with Gal Gadot in the title role, but at least for the moment, Marvel stands to make more of an impact. As such, the casting of this role becomes very important indeed. Do you get somebody like a Charlize Theron or Natalie Dormer, who have played this type of role before to step in, or do you step outside the box and grab an unknown. Well, I think I’ve found a solution that will not only work, but will act as a perfect counter to DC’s casting of Gadot, who certainly has potential in the role, but also comes off thus far as being cast more for her looks than anything.
I want Amy Schumer to play Carol Danvers.
Now I can certainly imagine that at least some of you are wondering how I could come to this conclusion, especially since Schumer has only been in one major movie role, and has entirely stuck to comedy thus far. Well for starters, if we look back, a great deal of Marvel’s stars have been comedians. Robert Downey Jr started out on SNL, Chris Pratt fumbled around and shined shoes on Parks and Recreation, and Paul Rudd has spent almost thirty years in one romantic comedy or another. It just makes sense given the comedic tone of these films to cast somebody who already has natural comedic timing. However, it certainly is fair to point out that she has yet to truly take on a character outside her own persona. While this could certainly be a hurdle, I would argue that in Trainwreck, she showed a great deal of dramatic range within that persona and if she were to apply that to Carol, it would not be an issue at all.
However, the main reason I want Schumer playing Captain Marvel goes a little deeper than just how she would approach the role. While I would never claim to be an expert on the female perspective, I can certainly ascertain that especially in big Hollywood blockbusters, they often yearn for somebody more relateable. Hollywood is so obsessed with keeping their admittedly evolving slate of female characters as traditionally beautiful as possible, that it often blinds them from selecting actresses who are better suited for roles than others. If Marvel really wanted to keep up their reputation of being consistently innovative, here’s a huge opportunity to prove it once again. While Schumer is certainly easy on the eyes, she’s not exactly the traditional Hollywood starlet either. She’s an every-woman, and for something as trail-blazing as this film, perhaps that’s exactly what we need.
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