Between Doctor Strange‘s decent critical and box office success, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2‘s new Super Bowl LI trailer, the Marvel Studios juggernaut shows no signs of slowing down. Yet the forthcoming Captain Marvel movie has produced little in the way of updates since Brie Larson’s casting news was followed by the announcement of release date delays. What gives?

According to co-screenwriter Nicole Perlman, who worked on early drafts of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, she and partner Meg LeFauve “didn’t have our marching orders until recently,” per a piece in The Hollywood Reporter. Speaking on the Great Big Beautiful Podcast, Perlman described Marvel Studios as a “house of cards” since “everything influences everything around it even if its very modular.” In other words, the 14 movies preceding the second Guardians film have made “figuring out where the story fits in the MCU” rather complex.

This means both continuity and individuality are high on Perlman and LeFauve’s to-do list for the Captain Marvel screenplay. For while Carol Danvers will be the first major female hero to get her own film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the studio doesn’t just want to repeat itself:

“She’s an incredible character, but I will also say that since Marvel has done so many movies already, you really have to go out of your way to make sure her story is fresh and doesn’t borrow too heavily from the other films,” she said. “She’s an incredibly strong and wonderful hero, but all the Marvel characters are. So you just need to figure out how to bring her to life in a way that’s unique to her story but in a way that honors the canon and also gearing out the roles that she needs to play with everything that’s going on in the MCU.”

Perlman admits earlier films, like Gunn’s first Guardians, were “very free” compared to the studio’s current and upcoming productions. Yet the fact that she and LeFauve are tasked with “writing the first female Marvel Studios lead” makes the project that much harder. “There are things you wouldn’t think twice about Iron Man,” she explained, “but you would think twice about for Captain Marvel.”

Captain Marvel is currently set to hit theaters March, 8 2019.

(Via TheHollywood Reporter)