“Candyman” Director Nia DaCosta Will Helm “Captain Marvel 2”
Director Nia DaCosta is going from Chicago’s Cabrini Green to the cosmos. Deadline broke the story and Variety has confirmed that DaCosta, the director behind the hotly anticipated reimagining of Candyman, will helm Captain Marvel 2 for Marvel, replacing Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. DaCosta will be directing off a script from WandaVision story editor Megan McDonnell.
DaCosta becomes the first Black woman to direct a film for Marvel, and the fourth woman overall following Boden, Black Widow‘s Cate Shortland, and The Eternals Chloé Zhao. This is flatly thrilling news. DaCosta wrote and directed the 2018 modern western Little Woods, starring Tessa Thompson and Lily James, which put her on the map as a director to watch. From there, she made the leap to Candyman, which she co-wrote alongside producer/all-around powerhouse Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld. It’s fair to say Candyman is one of the most eagerly awaited films of the year, but it’s been delayed from June to October due to COVID-19.
Variety reports that the director’s job on Captain Marvel 2 was very competitive. No surprise there considering it’s a Marvel film. What makes the top job on Captain Marvel 2 even more attractive is the film is centered on Marvel’s most powerful woman—Brie Larson’s cosmically gifted Carol Danvers—and Captain Marvel was the first MCU film to be centered solely on a female superhero. Boden and Fleck’s 2019 Captain Marvel introduced Danvers in her pre-Avengers days, getting us up to speed on how she attained her huge powers and why the battle between two alien races, the Kree and the shape-shifting Skrull, mattered so much to the MCU.
DaCosta is a rising star in the industry for a reason, and her skill set seems ideally suited to take on one of Marvel’s most crucial characters. The last time we heard from her, she was sharing this absolutely haunting prologue for Candyman, which justifiably set the Internet ablaze.
CANDYMAN, at the intersection of white violence and black pain, is about unwilling martyrs. The people they were, the symbols we turn them into, the monsters we are told they must have been. pic.twitter.com/MEwwr8umdI
— Nia DaCosta (@NiaDaCosta) June 17, 2020
DaCosta is one of the most exciting up-and-coming filmmakers working today. We can’t wait to see what she does when she applies her gifts to the MCU.
Featured image: LOS ANGELES, CA – APRIL 01: “Little Woods” Writer and Director Nia DaCosta speaks with press about her film during the Los Angeles Pink Carpet Premiere of “Little Woods” hosted by Refinery29, NEON and Rooftop Cinema Club at NeueHouse Hollywood on April 1, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Rachel Murray/Getty Images)
