Captain America: Brave New World
is now less than a week away, and marketing has delivered a look at all the main players, with particular emphasis being put on Harrison Ford’s Red Hulk showdown with Anthony Mackie’s newly shielded Captain America. However, Red Hulk is not the only antagonistic character to appear in the film, as Tim Blake Nelson reprises his role as The Leader for the first time since 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, and Giancarlo Esposito became a late addition to the cast as the Serpent Society’s Seth Voelker aka Sidewinder. In a new interview, MCU producer Nate Moore has now explained why the latter was such a latecomer to the party.
The MCU has undergone many changes in the last two years. After the poor performance of several big movies, constant criticism of sub-par CGI effects, and the dreaded whispers of “superhero fatigue,” the world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been attempting to course-correct in a big way. This means, several changes were made to the movie from its original plan, and Esposito’s character introduction was one of those. Moore explained to The National:
“I think one of the challenges of making these sorts of movies is making sure your tone is consistent. As we were making the film, we were really trying to find the perfect political thriller tone. And sometimes that means some of the stuff you shoot doesn’t quite work out in the way you intended. We knew we needed somebody like Giancarlo to help ground the tone even further into the world of the political thriller without it getting too heightened. The great thing about Giancarlo is that he can do stuff that is heightened, but you buy it. His character in The Mandalorian accomplished that. And I think he helped ground the tone of this movie in a way that really helped the movie writ large.”
Can ‘Captain America: Brave New World’ Get the MCU Back to Winning Ways?
Discounting 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine, which, if we are being honest, is a movie that does not fairly represent the state of the MCU’s box office appeal, Marvel Studios has struggled with several behind the scenes dramas while also trying to emerge from the mighty shadow of Avengers: Endgame. Captain America: Brave New World is the first real test to see how far they have come since the catastrophic release of The Marvels in November 2023.
There are several problems facing Marvel Studios in the coming year, with the main ones being the way many people are happy to skip seeing movies in theaters in the knowledge that they will be added to streaming services after just a few months, and the fact that some people have just become bored with the constant stream of comic book movies that were being churned out on an almost bi-monthly basis. For Brave New World, specifically, the potential for disappointment comes down to the huge amount of marketing focus that has been put on Red Hulk, a fan-favorite character that many have wanted to see for many years, who is rumored to have less than 4 minutes’ screen time in the movie.
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The MCU is about to make one of the biggest leaps towards the X-Men with a new discovery in ‘Brave New World.’
This is the kind of ploy that can often lead to some unsatisfied reactions on sites like CinemaScore, which gauges the reaction of those seeing the movie on its opening night. If the appearance of Red Hulk, and other characters such as The Leader, does not meet expectations, then the initial burst of box office interest could very quickly be Hulk smashed into the ground.