The Marvels Alternate Ending Could Have Featured Major Character’s Death

The Marvels arrival on Disney+ has left many fans wishing they had seen the final MCU release of 2023 in cinemas, which would have helped it avoid the unwanted record as the franchise’s lowest grossing movie. While promoting the film’s streaming debut, star Zawe Ashton broke down some of the ways the Captain Marvel sequel changed in the final cut, including abandoning a huge death.

The Marvels ended with Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel and Monica Rambeau taking on Ashton’s villain Dar-Benn, and her defeat ripped a hole in the multiverse, leading to Monica passing through the void and ending up in another universe – one inhabited by X-Men. However, according to Ashton, there was a different ending that they originally shot, which could have seen the end of Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers. Ashton told ComicBook.com’s Phase Zero podcast:

“There was another ending that we did film where Brie and myself are kind of in space still having it out, and they kind of combust together, which was really amazing. And that was just a day on wires hanging out with Brie, which is surreal and fun. But yeah, there were a few different plans, I think.”

Even if those “other plans” had ended up in The Marvels, it seems likely that it would not have been the end of Carol Danvers time in the franchise, and she would have returned at some point before the Multiverse Saga concluded.

Zawe Ashton Knew Her Character Would Never Survive The Marvels.

While there have been some MCU villains that have received a shot at redemption, Ashton was well aware that Dar-Benn would not be one of them. Continuing, she said:

“There was always going to be an epic death just because in terms of, I just think in terms of just bringing that story psychologically for Carol to a close I think was always the best thing. You don’t want to think, did she defeat her? Is this over? Is she going to be kind of doomed to this life of feeling guilty about this whole thing forever and ever? Or is she going get this redemptive moment where Dar-Benn’s out of the picture and then she gets to almost take on the mantle of what she was trying to do? It is a really redemptive arc for that character. I will say I did a day’s diving training because there was going to be a lot of water involved in the original death.”

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While Ashton’s character has had her time in the MCU, where the story goes next for Carol, Kamala and Monica is something that many fans have been speculating on. With Monica now in an alternate universe, with another variant of her mother, Maria, and what is likely to be the MCU’s first iteration of X-Men, and Carol and Kamala left to deal with the aftermath of that in the MCU timeline, there is much to be unpacked in their respective stories somewhere down the line.