Look forward to when it's no more newsworthy: Anna Boden on helming 'Captain Marvel'

It's a double bonanza that "Captain Marvel" is not just the first Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movie to star a female superhero, but also have a woman director calling the shots. Anna Boden, one half of the film's director duo, says it would be great to see a day when women pitching in will stop being newsworthy.

"Captain Marvel", the 21st film of MCU, has Boden and her long-time collaborator Ryan Fleck as directors.

While spreading love for the upcoming actioner "Captain Marvel" at a press conference here on Valentine's Day on Thursday, Boden was asked about her experience of being the first female director to get attached to MCU.

She said: "This is a movie I really wanted to be a part of, so having that experience has been really amazing -- to work on this canvas and character that so many people care so much about.

"But it is 2019, and I think everybody here looks forward to the day when it's no longer newsworthy that a woman is directing this kind of a movie."

Her comment is only very relevant given how women backslid as feature film directors and face radical under-representation in the film world.

A recent report quoted by Variety said women accounted for eight per cent of directors working on the top 250 films in 2018, which was down by three percent from 11 in 2017.

In 2017, Patty Jenkins had made a statement by helming "Wonder Woman", also premised on a female superhero.

Expectations are naturally high from Marvel's "Captain Marvel", releasing in India on March 8, celebrated as International Women's Day.

Besides boasting of action-packed sequences featuring Oscar-winning actress Brie Larson as a former US Air Force pilot-turned-intergalactic warrior Captain Marvel, the film will also touch upon emotions.

Larson, who underwent intense physical training for the role, said: "The film is so big, and there are so many aspects of it that are larger than life, given that, we are dealing with is a superhero with powers of fighting aliens in space.

"But the thing that grounds it in reality are the smaller moments, the reality, the character moments, the moments in between the big fight sequences... those were the things we spent time on to make sure they had as much care as a giant explosion."

Adding to that, Fleck said: "Like other Marvel movies, this one is going to have a lot of action. We have action in space, in alien planets, in the mountains and deserts, city trains... So, we do have the action, but what people may not be expecting is what Brie said, the emotional journey that they can go on."

The team was joined by actors Samuel L. Jackson and Gemma Chan at the conference.

(The writer's trip is on an invitation by Disney India. Radhika Bhirani can be contacted at radhika.b@ians.in)

--IANS

rb/dc/in