Captain Marvel Most Successful Film to Feature Woman Composer

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Captain Marvel Broke Another Box Office Record This Weekend

By Brandon Zachary

Published Mar 11, 2019

On top of Captain Marvel's other box office achievements, the film also became the top-grossing film scored by a woman.

In its opening weekend, Captain Marvel enjoyed tremendous success at the box office. The film connected with audiences while also earning the sixth-largest opening ever, becoming the highest-grossing premiere for a film featuring a woman in the lead role. The various review bombs targeting the movie have failed to even put a dent in the overall success of the movie. Now, the film has set another record this weekend, drawing attention to a more systemic problem with female representation in Hollywood.

Variety reports that Captain Marvel is already the most successful film ever released that features a woman as the composer. The previous record holder was The Vow, scored by Rachel Portman, which made $125 million over its entire theatrical run at the domestic box office in 2012. Comparatively, Pinar Toprak composed the score for Captain Marvel, with the newest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe already bringing in $153 million domestically, just in its opening weekend.

In 2018, only 6% of the 250 top-grossing films featured scores composed by women, double the number from the previous year. Lolita Ritmanis, composer for numerous animated DC series (including Young Justice) and former president of the Alliance for Women Film Composers, said that "a rise from 3% to 6% is good, but that shows we have a long road ahead of us... those voices have been there all along, but historically have been unjustifiably marginalized or compartmentalized."

Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck from a script they wrote with Liz Flahive, Carly Mensch, Meg LeFauve, Nicole Perlman and Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Captain Marvel stars Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Jude Law as Yon-Rogg, Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson, Lee Pace as Ronan the Accuser, Djimon Hounsou as Korath the Pursuer, Gemma Chan as Minn-Erva, Ben Mendelsohn as Talos, Lashana Lynch as Maria Rambeau, Algenis Perez Soto as Att-Lass, McKenna Grace as a young Carol Danvers and Annette Bening as the Supreme Intelligence. The movie is in theaters now.