The Marvels Recasts Fan-Favorite MCU Character & Twitter Isn't Holding Back
"The Marvels" won't just be a sequel to 2019's "Captain Marvel," but also a continuation of "WandaVision" and "Ms. Marvel." Indeed, the forthcoming superhero film will team Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) up with Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), the daughter of her best friend, and Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), her biggest fan. "WandaVision" and "Ms. Marvel" saw Monica and Kamala each take their first steps toward becoming superheroes of their own. Now, "The Marvels" is set to continue their journeys while also catching up with Larson's Carol, who hasn't played a prominent role in any film or TV show since 2019's "Avengers: Endgame."
Carol, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Kamala, and Monica aren't the only existing Marvel Cinematic Universe characters who are returning in the forthcoming film, either. Carol's fan-favorite pet Flerken, Goose, is also coming back for the sequel. However, as a character poster recently revealed, the version of Goose that appears in "The Marvels" doesn't look anything like the one featured in "Captain Marvel." Predictably, the apparent recasting has prompted numerous online reactions from MCU fans.
Suffice it to say, viewers have let their feelings about the "new" Goose be known. @BradHintonFilms, for instance, tweeted, "They really couldn't get a new cat that looks like the old cat?," while @btecbradford joked, "The [original] cat [had] creative differences."
Fans are comparing Goose's recasting to other famous MCU actor replacements
Fans have taken Marvel's decision to cast a new cat that looks very different from the original Goose as an opportunity to jokingly reference some of the studio's past recasting choices. Viewers have specifically compared Goose's unexpected makeover to when Marvel chose to replace Terrence Howard as James "Rhodey" Rhodes after 2008's "Iron Man" and similarly brought Mark Ruffalo on to play Bruce Banner in 2012's "The Avengers" instead of Edward Norton, who famously played the character in 2008's "The Incredible Hulk."
On X, formerly Twitter, @LBlau8 joked, "They Cheadle'd Goose!?," while @thelastravager tweeted, "Goose was asking for too much of a salary bump." For their part, @KamiAnimess poked fun at Marvel's decision to simply release a poster of the new Goose without any explanation, tweeting, "Corporate, said 'They're the same image.'" @calvonico, meanwhile, sincerely asked, "Couldn't they have used a cat with the same fur color?" Fans, in other words, seem simultaneously surprised and bewildered over Marvel's decision to recast Goose in such an obvious fashion.
Notably, Howard and Norton's disappearances from the MCU have never been acknowledged at any point in the franchise, so it seems safe to assume that Goose's recasting will similarly go unremarked upon in "The Marvels." Of course, the film could find a way to use Goose's Flerken abilities to explain the furry, fan-favorite pet's new appearance. Either way, fans will just have to wait for "The Marvels" to hit theaters on November 10 to see how the film does or doesn't acknowledge the character's transformation.