Marvel Studios has hired a pair of high-profile female screenwriters to oversee forthcoming superhero movie Captain Marvel, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Nicole Perlman, best known for co-writing summer comic-book smash Guardians of the Galaxy, will join Meg LeFauve, of new Pixar fantasy Inside Out, on the project.

Captain Marvel, which is due to hit cinemas in 2018, is expected to be Marvel’s debut female-fronted superhero movie. The comic-book version is Carol Danvers, a US airforce pilot who develops cosmic superpowers including flight, super-strength and “energy projection” after gaining extra-terrestrial DNA during an accident on a restricted military base.

Marvel is keen to secure prominent female voices for the project, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Perlman and LeFauve have been asked to team up by studio supremo Kevin Feige after both presented strong concepts for the film.

Captain Marvel is one of the studio’s recently announced slate of nine superhero movies due to debut between 2016 and 2019. The other films are Captain America 3: Civil War and Doctor Strange (both 2016), Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Black Panther (both 2017), Thor: Ragnarok and Inhumans (2018) and two Avengers films in 2018 and 2019, Infinity War parts one and two.

Danvers herself has an unusual history, having debuted as Ms Marvel in 1977 before morphing into Captain Marvel some 35 years later. In her early years, she was seen as something of a feminist superhero icon, fighting for equal pay in her civilian identity and featuring the comic-book tagline: “This female fights back!”