The weekend saw a social media sensation, in regards to this year’s Captain Marvel film, that was certainly more heartwarming than some of the vitriol often greeted by that Marvel Cinematic Universe movie that was released in March.
In honor of Best Friends Day, which was Saturday, the official Twitter account for Captain Marvel tweeted a photo of Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) and Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), with a caption that referenced their friendship.
The replies to the tweet made something clear: A great many fans of the Captain Marvel movie believe, possibly wishfully, that Carol and Maria are more than best friends.
“Just two gals raising a kid together and being pals, am I right? Best friends and spouses can be so hard to differentiate sometimes,” Twitter user @dwrld_jehn tweeted in response.
Many others responded using the word “friends?” along with funny gifs, some of which were of Brie Larson. Others pointed out that the tweet should have been in celebration of Pride month, rather than Best Friends Day.
In the film, Maria and Carol are longtime friends who were military pilots together. It is not canon, at least at this point, that the two are in a romantic relationship, but their obvious chemistry and closeness, along with the lack of a male love interest for Captain Marvel led many to speculate on the relationship between the characters.
Larson talked about the relationship earlier this year in an interview with the Australian website News.com.au .
“The great love story in this movie is her best friend,” Larson said while promoting the movie. “That’s her long lost love. And I can’t think of anything that is more powerful to me than the girlfriends in my life. To get to imbue what that experience is really like [in the movie] felt powerful.”
Friends who save the world together, stay together. #BestFriendsDay #CaptainMarvel pic.twitter.com/tFy6BQuexX
— Captain Marvel (@captainmarvel) June 8, 2019
Captain Marvel, the first film in the more than 20-movie Marvel Cinematic Universe series to feature a solo female protagonist, was a big financial success for Disney, earning over $426 million at the domestic box office and over $700 million internationally for a total of over $1 billion, per Box Office Mojo .
Despite a variety of controversies over everything from comments Larson made about feminism to a baseless conspiracy theory that Disney somehow rigged the box office numbers, Captain Marvel is currently the second highest-grossing film of the year domestically, and the only release ahead of it, Avengers: Endgame , also includes the Captain Marvel character.
