At just 1 hour and 45 minutes, The Marvels was a breezy adventure that, unfortunately, was deemed a throwaway adventure by the vast majority of moviegoers (explaining why the Captain Marvel sequel failed to take flight at the box office).
It's no secret that a big chunk of the movie was left on the cutting room floor and we know from concept art and plot leaks that the ending underwent some significant changes. Now, though, a newly surfaced behind-the-scenes photo confirms Carol Danvers once had a much different role to play in the story.
As you can see below, there was a point when Carol - during what appears to be the evacuation of Nick Fury's S.A.B.E.R. base - would have been wielding one of the Kree bangles/Nega-Bands and Dar-Benn's Universal Weapon.
Without having additional context, it's hard to say what this meant for The Marvels, but we'd bet on there being a very different version of the movie somewhere in the bowels of Marvel Studios. For example, there was a time when Carol and Valkyrie's past romance would have been confirmed during their reunion.
"I'll pitch Kevin 17 versions of what can happen with all these women, and why and how, and this and that," The Marvels director Nia DaCosta recentkly said about the chances of a third Captain Marvel movie. "And he's like, 'Okay, girl', and sometimes I think I've really got a movie going after this. And then other times, I'm like, 'Oh, they have this whole other plan that I'm not a part of.'"
#ReleaseTheDaCostaCut? We're not banking on that ever happening, but The Marvels is the second MCU movie released in 2023 to have suffered from "fixes" made with reshoots (the other was Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and its new ending).
In The Marvels, Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel has reclaimed her identity from the tyrannical Kree and taken revenge on the Supreme Intelligence. But unintended consequences see Carol shouldering the burden of a destabilized universe.
When her duties send her to an anomalous wormhole linked to a Kree revolutionary, her powers become entangled with that of Jersey City super-fan Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, and Carol’s estranged niece, now S.A.B.E.R. astronaut Captain Monica Rambeau. Together, this unlikely trio must team up and learn to work in concert to save the universe as "The Marvels."
The movie stars Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani, Samuel L. Jackson, Zawe Ashton and Park Seo-joon.
The Marvels is now playing in theaters worldwide.