Anthony Mackie Gives Fans the Inside Scoop on ‘Captain America: Brave New World’
After carrying the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) on his (admittedly broad) shoulders for almost ten years, Chris Evans finally set down his Captain America shield at the end of Avengers: Endgame.
Following the events of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, that mantle has been passed to Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson, who will carry the franchise forward in the upcoming Captain America: Brave New World.
“The title implies that there’s a new, bigger enemy now; there’s a new frontier that we have to conquer,” Mackie notes. “From Captain America: The First Avenger to Endgame, the enemy was always good versus bad. Now that we’ve conquered that, where do we go from here? When the bad guys reappear, in what form are they reappearing? It is a new storyline with new characters, with new beliefs, and it creates a new idea of this new world that we’re going into.”
A Preview of ‘Brave New World’
At Thursday’s CinemaCon at Caesar’s Palace on Thursday, audiences got a preview of the upcoming film. In the clip, Harrison Ford makes his debut as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, now the newly-elected President of the United States.
While admitting that he does not love superheroes, he says that he can recognize Sam’s goodness and tasks the new Captain America with reforming the Avengers. At this point, an old-timey song interrupts Ross’s presentation, and the President is attacked by sleeper super soldiers, including Carl Lumbly’s Isaiah Bradley.
“It made more sense for it to be more of a grounded espionage action movie as opposed to aliens and airplanes coming through portals and s—,” Mackie tells EW. “Even though I’ve been in so many of them and have seen it all now, the opportunity for Sam to really establish himself as a true action star and Avenger comes with this movie.”
Forging a New Path
As Mackie and the Brave New World team moved along in the process, they wanted to differentiate the film from Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
“One of the biggest conversations we had from the beginning was for this not to be ‘Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ — Part 2, for this to be its own movie with its own story, with its own characters,” he continues.
In addition to Mackie, Ford, and Lumbly, Brave New World will also see the return of a pair of characters from 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. Liv Tyler is making her long-awaited MCU return as Betty Ross, while Tim Blake Nelson returns as Leader. According to Mackie, however, fans can enjoy Brave New World without having seen The Incredible Hulk.
“This movie is a clear reset. It really reestablishes the idea of what this universe is and what this universe is going to be,” Mackie says. “I think with these movies, you’re getting a clear, new branding of what Marvel is headed towards the same way they did with ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier.'”
Captain America: Brave New World will hit theaters on February 14, 2025.