Marvel is taking us on a journey back in time with Captain Marvel, a film that will take place in the 1990s to explain the hero’s origins. While Brie Larson is set to play Carol Danvers, the air force pilot who eventually gains superhuman powers, the film also brings back Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson. Except this is a story set in the past, and what we didn’t know was how Marvel intended to handle much younger versions of those characters. Well, now we know, and it’s through de-aging technology.
Why is this a big deal when Marvel has used it sparingly for Michael Douglas in both Ant-Man movies, Michelle Pfeiffer and Laurence Fishburne in Ant-Man and the Wasp, Robert Downey Jr. in Captain America: Civil War, and Kurt Russell in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2? Because this will be the first time the technology is used to de-age an actor for the entirety of the film. Marvel’s Kevin Feige revealed this in conversation with Slashfilm, and managed to work in a pretty funny bit about Paul Rudd being ageless…
Feige: Well, I think having the option is pretty amazing. And I think having the technology and even without spoiling anything, Sam Jackson is shooting a movie for us right now that takes, where he’s entirely 25 years younger the whole movie [Captain Marvel]. So that’ll certainly be the one–
/: And Coulson, right?
Feige: And Coulson. So that’ll be the first one where it’s a character for the whole movie, as opposed to a glimpse at a certain period of time. It’s the whole movie. So it’s possible, assuming that works. It’s possible. It’s very good when you are starting by the way with somebody like Michelle Pfeiffer or Michael Douglas or for that matter Sam Jackson or Clark Gregg. All four of them–
/: Because you have an abundance of reference material or…?
Feige: You have all the reference material and they have aged amazingly. They’ve not aged like normal humans. It’s like Paul Rudd. These are–
/: Paul Rudd looks like he stepped out of Clueless. I don’t understand it.
Feige: Yeah. He somehow can do that effect in real life.
It used to be that this technology was really clunky, remember when they did it to Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy? But that’s no longer the case and Marvel has been using it to great effect. They’ve got so much faith in it to commit an entire movie. The only thing I’m hoping for now is that they de-age Jackson all the way to his character in Juice.
Captain Marvel opens March 8th 2019!
