Angelina Jolie tipped to direct Captain Marvel movie

Angelina Jolie is under consideration to direct Captain Marvel, the Disney-owned studio’s debut female-fronted superhero movie, according to Collider.

Marvel hired a pair of high-profile female screenwriters, Guardians of the Galaxy’s Nicole Perlman and Inside Out’s Meg LeFauve, to oversee the new film earlier this week. If she signs on, Captain Marvel would likely be Jolie’s fourth movie behind the cameras after 2011’s In the Land of Blood and Honey, recent second world war drama Unbroken and upcoming intimate romantic drama By the Sea.

Collider suggests Captain Marvel could replace Africa, a proposed biopic of the real-life fossil hunter turned protector of elephants Richard Leakey, on the Oscar-winning actor’s film-making slate. The latter movie, which was due to star Jolie’s husband Brad Pitt, is reportedly facing financing problems.

Collider also had Jolie down as a potential candidate to replace Michelle MacLaren on rival studio Warner Bros’s debut female-led comic book movie of the modern era, Wonder Woman. But the site’s credibility was undermined somewhat when Monster’s Patty Jenkins was last night revealed to have taken the job. Nevertheless, Collider is standing by its studio sources with reference to Jolie’s interest in Captain Marvel. The appointment would be a huge coup for Marvel, given Jolie’s celebrity status and accompanying ability to heighten interest in one of the studio’s comic book arm’s lesser-known properties.

Captain Marvel is one of Marvel’s recently announced slate of nine superhero movies due to debut between 2016 and 2019. The current iteration of the character has the alter-ego Carol Danvers, a sometime US Air Force pilot who develops cosmic superpowers including flight, super-strength and “energy projection” after gaining extraterrestrial DNA during an accident on a restricted military base.

Danvers was first introduced in 1968, debuting as Ms Marvel in 1977 before morphing into Captain Marvel some 35 years later. The character was chosen by Marvel as a surprise choice for its first female-centred superhero movie despite Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow being better known to cinema audiences through her appearances in the Iron Man, Captain America and Avengers films.