Amid reports that Marvel is casting their first openly gay superhero, production chief Victoria Alonso says that "the world is ready" for an LGBTQI+ character.
Following reports the studio's president Kevin Feige was looking to cast an LGBTQI+ hero in their upcoming film 'The Eternals' - Marvel's production chief Victoria Alonso has confirmed that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is open to a homosexual character although she didn't wholly confirm the rumour.
Speaking to Variety at the 'Captain Marvel' premiere in Los Angeles, she said: "The world is ready. We are going to cast the best 'Eternals' cast that we can and when we're ready to announce it we promise you we will."
Latest MCU film 'Captain Marvel' - which stars Brie Larson as the titular hero - is the first female-led standalone film in the MCU and Victoria emphasised how important diversity is to Marvel and insisted that their "determination" is to have "diversity and inclusivity".
She explained: "Why wouldn't we be? Why wouldn't we be? I'm so passionate about this I've got to tell you.
"Our entire success is based on people that are incredibly different. Why wouldn't we? Why would we only want to be recognised by only one type of person? Our audience is global, is diverse, is inclusive. If we don't do it that way for them, we will fail. If we don't put pedal to the metal on the diversity and the inclusivity, we will not have continued success. Our determination is to have that for all of the people out there watching our movies."
'The Eternals' is scheduled to beginning shooting in the UK in September and will be released in 2020.
Chloe Zhao will direct the film, 'Ruin' writers Matthew and Ryan Firpo have signed up to pen the script for the movie, and Feige will produce the picture.