Captain Marvel star SLAMS trolls over Brie Larson 'white men' furore: 'It's sad'

The Oscar-winning actress has spoken out on wanting to help diversify the press who cover her movies, most recently in an interview with Marie Claire. And despite clarifying that “what I’m looking for is to bring more seats up to the table… Nobody is getting their chair taken away,” trolls, bots and misogynists chose to interpret her comments as “anti white men”, taking to Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb to ‘review bomb’ Captain Marvel in a bid to disrupt its box office prospects.

Their efforts failed: Captain Marvel has landed the sixth best global opening weekend of all time – even despite some relatively mixed reviews.

Clark Gregg, who plays Phil Coulson, has indirectly referenced the furore.

He told Nerdist: ”There are people who get very bent out of shape about the fact that she’s a woman, and that Brie’s a woman and wants to see women moving into an equal place in humanity to men.

“Sad. It must be sad to be that kind of dinosaur wandering toward the tar pits.”

The movie has gone down a storm online: while reviews are tentatively positive, the audience response is very warm indeed – it scored an A on an A+ to F scale with CinemaScore.

Gregg is, of course, one of its biggest cheerleaders.

“I’m a big sucker for the thing where people are having to understand on a deeper level who they are, in a way they never would have imagined,” he said.

Samuel L Jackson, who also stars in the film, had previously spoken out about Larson’s comments.

“It’s good that she did it, and it’s good that she said it, and I guess it made me more aware,” he told IndieWire.

And he added of Larson: “It’s really wonderful that [Marvel] made a choice and she is that choice, because she is a strong online presence, a social media presence for women’s rights, and she advocates for women and young girls, and women around the world all the time.”

This is just the start of Carol Danvers’ time in the MCU: she’ll be popping up in Avengers: Endgame in April, as teased by the mid-credits scene of Captain Marvel.

Captain Marvel is out now.