“Ms. Marvel” took less than two minutes to answer one key question: how the hell does the general MCU public know what happened during the battle of “Avengers: Endgame”? And apparently, the answer is that Scott Lang has a podcast — and “Ms. Marvel” executive producer Bisha K. Ali really wants to make it something we could all listen to.
Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) explains via voiceover in the “Ms. Marvel” premiere that she’s become an expert on Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) “due to my extensive research and diligent studying of Scott Lang’s podcast interviews.” So, apparently, Ant-Man took it upon himself to fill in the world at large. And for Ali, who also serves as head writer on the new Disney+ series, making that podcast a reality is a new dream.
“I’m desperate to listen to this podcast and desperate to make it,” Ali told TheWrap. “Like, also, why shouldn’t the MCU expand into podcasting? Like fiction podcast? I mean, Paul Rudd, what’s up? Let’s do it. I’ll write it, you just sit in a booth. It’ll be a good time. I would love to hear it. And also because — I don’t know, it can’t be for for everyone, but for me, podcasts are my relaxed space. Like I’m obsessed with podcasts. So yeah, I can see Kamala just sitting around listening to it all the time. I’d love to make it.”
But in terms of getting this aspect into the story of “Ms. Marvel,” Ali admits it was a pretty extensive process. At this point, she’s not even totally sure where the idea originated.
“I’m gonna be honest, I never take credit where it’s not due, that wasn’t my idea,” she explained. “That was something that we went through a million rounds of this, of like, how does [Kamala] know about things? Is it because everyone’s posting things on social media?”
Ali noted that she did have some other ideas on how people would know about the battle — they were just shot down by Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige.
“At one point, like early days before we kind of expanded the creative team out, I was like, ‘Kevin, what if there was like, drones and a live stream of the battle of ‘Endgame?” And he like, ‘Bisha, no,’” she recalled with a laugh. “I’m like, there wasn’t one Twitch streamer around for the final battle of ‘Endgame’? Are we kidding? I think I lost my mind at that point, try to solve this riddle. So it was really a big iterative journey. And it was something that kind of changed and moved all the way through. And I think it must have been a Sana [Amanat, co-creator of the “Ms. Marvel” comics] pitch by the end. Or it might even — I actually have no idea where that idea came from. But when we kind of integrated into the script, I think it was perfect. It was characterful.”
You can check out TheWrap’s full interview with Bisha K. Ali in the video above.
