Disney Casting Ms. Marvel Role; Filming Starts Next Year? [Updated]

A Disney casting call appears to suggest Marvel is looking to cast the character of Kamala Khan. According to the casting call, Marvel intends the hero to star in a standalone Ms. Marvel film, to begin production next year.

Marvel visionary Kevin Feige recently revealed that the studio has plans for the character of Kamala Khan, aka. Ms. Marvel. “Ms. Marvel is definitely in the works,” he revealed, to the delight of the young hero’s many fans. Just days ago, speaking at the Production Guild’s 10th annual Produced By conference, Feige explained why the studio has held back on Kamala to date. “We wanted to get Captain Marvel out there first,” he noted, “so that there is something for a young Muslim girl to get inspired by.” Those comments clearly seemed to imply a comic-book-accurate portrayal.

Related: The Next Spider-Man Should Include Ms. Marvel

In the latest news, Movie Casting Call has published a press release calling for actors to play the role of Kamala Khan. The casting call reads:

Marvel Studios / Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures is now casting a female actress to portray the role of Ms. Marvel aka Kamala Khan. This character is an American Muslim from Jersey City, New Jersey, and will star in a new stand-alone film “Ms. Marvel” to go into production next year. The character will be “comic book accurate”.

UPDATE: Omega Underground’s Christopher Marc casts doubt on the veracity of the casting call via Twitter, writing, “It took me a while to learn this but Marvel Studios doesn’t hold open castings and neither does Lucasfilm for lead roles.” The tweet was accompanied by a GIF with the caption, “It’s a scam.” Additionally, Marvel Comics writer G. Willow Wilson, who has worked on the Ms. Marvel title, tweeted the casting call is “false.”

It’s a surprising press release, not least because we’ve actually had very little information about Ms. Marvel to date. According to this casting call, Marvel intends the solo film to go into production as soon as next year. That’s a remarkably fast turnaround, especially considering we’ve had no news of a writer or director so far. But that doesn’t mean we should discount this. Movie Casting Call is an industry website that has proved reliable information in the past. Meanwhile, Marvel Studios is being very coy about their post-Avengers 4 projects. It’s quite possible the studio could have been working on Ms. Marvel for some time, but managed to keep it under wraps.

Assuming this casting call is reliable, Disney is indeed looking to cast an actor for the role of Ms. Marvel. This will be a “comic book accurate” role – fitting in with Feige’s previous comments – and will be set in New Jersey. This would be another bold step forwards for Marvel in terms of cultural representation, with the introduction of an “everyman” hero who’s actually a Muslim-American teenager. The Ms. Marvel series is a fascinating one, exploring the role of traditionalist faith in the context of social justice. All the core elements of Kamala’s world are present in that casting call, suggesting a future Ms. Marvel film would be true to that core concept.

If production really is expected to start next year, then we can assume Marvel hope to release Ms. Marvel in late 2020 or – more likely – 2021. This casting call is linked to Captain Marvel, though, suggesting that the character is expected to make some sort of cameo in that film. That makes sense since in the comics, Kamala is inspired by the heroism of Captain Marvel, and chooses her codename in honor of Carol Danvers. It would be very appropriate for Kamala to be introduced in some sort of post-credits scene. In fact, she actually made her comic book debut in a similar way, in a brief one-page scene at the end of an issue of Captain Marvel.

If this casting call is indeed accurate, it surely can’t be long before we get more news about this popular character.

More: Ms. Marvel Should Debut in a Captain Marvel Movie