As Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson picks up the shield in
CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD
he finds himself up against not just a huge political conspiracy, but a certain rouge-hued beast.
Prepare for what might be the MCU’s angriest movie yet…
by Chris Hewitt
Think of the number six. At first glance, it’s fairly humdrum and meaningless, just another number lost in the infinity gauntlet.
But ask any maths nerd, and they’ll tell you that it’s actually the smallest perfect number. It is considered by numerous numerologists to be the ‘mother’ of numbers. Alan Hansen wore the number 6 shirt for Liverpool. Patrick McGoohan’s character in The Prisoner protested he was a man, not a number; but what a number it was.
And when Anthony Mackie made his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut as Sam Wilson, aka The Falcon, all the way back in 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, he was assigned a number on the call sheet, the daily production breakdown that, among other things, lists cast members in order of story import. Have a wild guess what that number was.
“I do my best work at number six,” Mackie tells Empire. “That’s my Marvel number.”
And so it’s remained through Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and The Falcon And The Winter Soldier. But things change. Alan Hansen retired, for one. And Sam Wilson is no longer The Falcon. He is the new Captain America.
And so, you’d imagine that when Mackie walked onto the set of Captain America: Brave New World — the 35th MCU film, the fourth of those to bear the Captain America name, and the first without Chris Evans as Steve Rogers — the call sheet would reflect that with a bump all the way to the top spot.
Not so.
“I never wanted to be number one on a call sheet,” says Mackie. “I was like, ‘Keep me at number six.’ The idea of being number one isn’t the accomplishment. The accomplishment is seeing Sam Wilson turn into Captain America.”
* * *
You could be forgiven for thinking that Sam Wilson turned into Captain America when an aged Steve Rogers handed him that shield at the end of Avengers: Endgame in 2019. Or if not then, then certainly at the end of the 2021 Disney+ series, The Falcon And The Winter Soldier (FAWS, for short), when, after six episodes of soul-searching, Sam finally embraced the role. But the next step wasn’t set in stone.
“With the Marvel stuff, you never really know what they’re planning on, what’s going to happen,” admits Mackie. “It became a question of what was next? Is there going to be a Season 2, or in what way is Sam gonna exist in the MCU?”
For Nate Moore, one of Kevin Feige’s most trusted lieutenants and executive producer on that show, there was only ever one option, and that was a big, bold big-screen effort, on the same scale as the Steve Rogers trilogy. “It originated off the success of The Falcon And The Winter Soldier,” he tells Empire. “It did feel like the tip of the iceberg. Sam has finally embraced the idea of being Captain America. But where does he go from there?”
Into a brave new world, naturally. Neither Mackie nor Moore, nor Malcolm Spellman, the FAWS head-writer who also co-wrote Brave New World, wanted to repeat themselves. “What the movie is not is ‘Falcon And Winter Soldier 2.5’,” says Mackie. That means that FAWS’ focus on race, and what it means for the world to have a Black man as Captain America, is not the focus here. “Being a Black man in America, that’s something you can’t overlook because every day you walk out the house, you have to deal with it,” explains Mackie. “It’ll always be a subtext, but it’s not the focus. I think what we dealt with in the show was specifically for the show.”
Likewise, the spotlight is very much on Sam, who has previously been defined by his friendships with Bucky Barnes (who’s off with the Thunderbolts), and Steve Rogers (old, retired, possibly living on the moon).
He does get a wingman, in the shape of Danny Ramirez as the new Falcon, Joaquin Torres, which in itself is a different dynamic. “He’s a mentor of Joaquin,” says Ramirez of Sam. “And I think that relationship was also true in real life. I definitely feel like [Mackie] took that role on.”
The Falcon And The Ex-Falcon aside, though, this is The Sam Wilson Show, as he finds himself in classic Cap territory, trying to unravel a massive conspiracy which begins with an attempt to assassinate the President in the White House. “We start off as a grounded political thriller,” says Julius Onah, the film’s director. “And then somewhere along the ride, it surprises you in ways you just didn’t see coming.”
The affable, Berlin-based Onah, who previously directed The Cloverfield Paradox and 2019 drama Luce, is the kind of filmmaker who namedrops Melville (Le Samouraï), Boorman (Point Blank) and Fassbinder (World On A Wire) while discussing a Marvel movie. “I don’t want to be that guy who says, ‘I was inspired by this thing’, and then you watch the movie, and you’re like, ‘What the fuck were you talking about?’” he laughs. “We looked at a number of different films. We had a conversation about The Day Of The Jackal, and the Pakula trilogy of Klute, All The President’s Men and The Parallax View. These are all movies about people on the move, trying to stay one step ahead of an investigation or an adversary.”
In the MCU, bar a couple of brief appearances for William Sadler’s President Matthew Ellis, the President has largely been an afterthought. That changes with Brave New World, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the new President — the man to whom Sam answers — is General Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross. Yes, the man who introduced the Sokovia Accords in Captain America: Civil War, and set Sam on a path that ended in unwelcome lodgings. “He definitely shitted on Sam by throwing him in jail,” says Mackie. “That isn’t just forgotten and overlooked. That relationship they have has to be mended and healed, just like it would with anybody else who dishonoured your trust.”
From the MCU’s inception, Ross had been played by the great William Hurt. “He was very excited about the idea of this movie,” says Moore. But after Hurt passed away in 2022, the plans for Ross remained in place. A new President was required. And who better to turn to than a man with one iconic movie President already under his belt?
“I was a little concerned about taking over from Bill Hurt, who was a wonderful actor,” admits Harrison Ford, who steps into the shoes (but not moustache) of Ross, for his second big-screen President after Air Force One. “I was ambitious to find the right way of assuming this character after the audience had seen other people doing it. I’m only slightly familiar with the Marvel Universe — I live in another universe — but I have watched a number of Marvel films with wonderful actors, apparently having a good time. And I thought, ‘Well, why not me?’”
But there’s a more sinister change in store for Ross. One which could have huge consequences for Sam (and the wider MCU), as he discovers, to his horror, that the most powerful man on the planet might actually be the most powerful man on the planet. Meet the Red Hulk.
* * *
Harrison Ford is angry. Contrary to popular belief, you would like Harrison Ford when he’s angry. Because, frankly, it’s a hoot.
Empire is on a late-night Zoom call with Ford, who is in Montana, having just wrapped a day of filming on Yellowstone prequel 1923. We’re in the middle of a question about the appeal of stretching his acting muscles as the Red Hulk when Ford suddenly leans forward and starts shaking his head.
“No! No, no, no, no,” he growls. And then — and there’s no better way to say this — Harrison Ford Hulks out. He contorts his body, twists his face into a mask of rage. His hands become feral claws, and he emits a guttural roar that nearly shorts our speakers and almost fills our shorts. “The ability to just go RRRRRRRR-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR-HHHHHHH [sic] is not the highest ambition that I have as an actor,” he says.
It gives Empire, separated by a computer screen and several thousand miles, just a hint of what it was like to witness Ford doing this on set. Onah describes that experience as “mind-blowing. All of us on set were like, ‘Holy fucking shit, he nailed it.’ It’s really great to get back to a Hulk that is just fucking breaking shit, and a rage monster.” Xosha Roquemore, who plays Leila Taylor, the head of Ross’ security detail, had a front-row seat. “Doing things like that as an actor is really vulnerable,” she says. “Everyone’s watching you go crazy. To watch that time after time was inspiring.”
There’s a sense that Marvel could have made back the film’s budget if they’d sold tickets to watch Ford Hulk out. “He went full at it,” says Mackie. “He would throw himself on the ground, he would do all this crazy stuff that you wouldn’t expect him to do as an 80-something-year-old man.” For Ford, though, it was “just another day at the office. I tried to understand the ambition of the filmmakers, and to be useful to them. I just didn’t sit home at night and say, ‘Oh, what do I want to do when I turn into the Hulk?’ It didn’t seem to me to be a terribly difficult acting proposition.” Don’t tell Mark Ruffalo.
The Red Hulk has only been knocking around Marvel Comics since 2008 (the same year William Hurt first played Ross), but he’s made a huge impact. Introduced as an adversary for the O.G. (Overly Green) Hulk, the Red Hulk is every bit as strong as the jade giant, but with an added bonus: the madder he gets, the hotter he gets. “It’s not ‘Hulk Plus’,” says Moore. “Because that makes it sound like Hulk needs a plus, but it’s fun to play with ideas like that.” The burning question is, when did Moore and co decide to pull the trigger on Red Hulk Ross? “It came pretty early days,” adds Moore. “We loved the idea of seeing an evolution of Thaddeus Ross, and we knew that journey ended up at some point in Red Hulk.”
In the comics, Red Hulk’s true identity was initially a mystery, before he was finally revealed as Thunderbolt Ross, who after years of Elmer Fudding his way through endless attempts to destroy the Hulk had decided, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em and then beat the hell out of ’em. In Brave New World, there is no mystery around who the Red Hulk is. “One minute he’s President, the next minute he’s fucked,” notes Ford.
How true. As teased in the trailer, Ross will transform into the mardy monster in full view of the world and his Secret Service security detail. “That’s not in the training camp at Secret Service college,” laughs Roquemore. “I think everyone’s trying to figure that out on their feet.” And later, he will go toe-to-toe with Sam in the streets of Washington DC. Which poses something of a problem for the new Cap. Yes, he has a nifty pair of Wakandan-made wings, and a shield whose claims to indestructibility are about to be sorely tested. But the man himself is human. Just one flick of the Red Hulk’s little finger could reduce him to Jam Wilson. How can he hold his own against a force of nature? “Sam is a very cerebral character, a very thoughtful character,” adds Mackie. “He was introduced to us as a counsellor. He does not have the serum, his ability is not that of brute force. He has to be able to manoeuvre, react, initiate, but also talk or counsel his way out of situations.”
So, the mystery of the MCU Hulk isn’t who he is, but how this transformation came to be. “I don’t think I want to go very much into what the mechanism is and how he is being controlled,” says Ford. “I don’t think that there’s a choice. Didn’t feel like it at the time.”
So, who’s doing the controlling, then? All roads lead to The Leader.
* * *
The last time we saw Tim Blake Nelson in the MCU, it was in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, the MCU’s second film. In fact, the MCU wouldn’t be known as the MCU for a few years. Which isn’t to say that Kevin Feige and team weren’t already laying track for destinations unknown.
So when Nelson’s Samuel Sterns, a scientist trying to help Bruce Banner (who then looked like Edward Norton) curb his Hulkish enthusiasm, is infected by gamma-irradiated Banner blood that starts to mutate and warp his head, it was a seed planted; one that would eventually see Sterns become the Hulk’s arch-enemy, The Leader.
But that seed never sprouted. The Incredible Hulk’s lukewarm reception meant that Banner (who now looked like Mark Ruffalo) was deployed elsewhere. And Nelson’s phone stayed silent. “I’d begun to think that I had the reverse Midas Touch,” he laughs.
Sterns’ greatest strength isn’t his strength. It’s his intellect, that mutated head housing one of the biggest (albeit not necessarily emotionally stable) brains on the planet. “I requested that we do what we were going to do, practically,” says Nelson of the Leader’s virtual planetoid of a bonce. “Which was a huge help, because I liked being able to feel the weight of the deformation on my head, rather than just wearing dots.”
So we have not one but two iconic Hulk villains. Plus Liv Tyler returning as Betty Ross, ex-lover of Bruce Banner and daughter of Thunderbolt. “He’s eager to redeem himself in his daughter’s eyes,” says Ford of Ross’ relationship with Betty. So, in many ways, this Captain America sequel is actually a belated stealth sequel to The Incredible Hulk. “When I was a kid, I always loved it when there were unexpected characters intersecting,” explains Moore. “We felt that this was a really interesting time to revisit Ross and Sterns and Betty Ross as well. And it didn’t feel like we’d be wedging it in. It actually felt like we could really explore it.”
* * *
It’s not all been plain sailing towards this Brave New World. The project was first announced under a different name — ‘Captain America (that part is non-negotiable): New World Order’ — only for that to change once filming was underway. “I think ‘New World Order’ was a title we thought was really interesting, and sort of moody and scary,” says Moore. “And to be quite honest, some of the feedback we got, internally and externally, was that that phrase has, unfortunately, been co-opted in the real world in a way that made people uncomfortable.”
If that made people uncomfortable, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The film was initially meant to come out in May of last year, and was then pushed back not once, but twice, following the impact of the various Hollywood strikes of 2023. Eventually, it settled in February, which means that a movie in which the American President is a rampaging rage monster, possibly manipulated by outside interests, will be released just a couple of weeks after Donald Trump is sworn back into the White House. It’s unfortunate timing, but it almost certainly won’t stop some people accusing the film of all kinds of political point-scoring. “We never try to tell stories that feel ripped from the headlines,” says Moore, who in fairness would have had to have the Time Stone to foresee this particular turn of events. “The best we can do is try and anchor our stories in a world that feels real. And sometimes fiction and non-fiction line up in unexpected and unintended ways.”
Any resemblance to US Presidents living or dead is entirely coincidental, in other words. “So far we have not had a President who can transform into a Hulk,” deadpans Ford. “We have not faced these kinds of circumstances in our political life, although we’ve had enough of a glimpse of the range of political life to realise that we could really end up in a political Marvel movie. But that’s not what this is about. This is about one man trying to deal with his own history, with his own temperament, with his own circumstances.”
The ping-ponging of the film’s release date, along with rumours of extensive reshoots and significant retooling of the movie in response to negative test-screening reactions, has led to suggestions that the film might be troubled. Something that its makers strongly deny. “It wasn’t retooled at all,” says Mackie. “Every Marvel movie I’ve done has done reshoots, so it’s not retooling or remaking. You basically get the movie and the story you want, you edit it together, then go back and shoot a few more scenes.”
Still, the rewrites and reshoots were hefty enough to incorporate a new set of secondary villains, The Serpent Society, a nefarious organization led by Giancarlo Esposito’s Seth Voelker, aka Sidewinder. (Yes, they’re all named after snakes. It’s their thing.) “I jumped into this thing,” laughs Esposito, who joined the production in its additional-photography phase earlier this year. “I was in basic training for four days. So I just stay calm and deal with what I have. And I’m excited about this because people haven’t seen me in this light. I’m pretty badass, and I have a pretty big gun, and yes, he knows how to use it.”
* * *
Despite these travails, Marvel will be hoping that Brave New World will be a (Red Hulk) smash, and can continue the recovery that started with Deadpool & Wolverine, with audiences flocking back to the MCU after its recent wobble. And there’s no question that Marvel is very much in the Anthony Mackie-as-Cap business. “There is certainly more story to be told for Captain America,” says Moore. “Sam might find that, moving forward, he might be jumping out of the frying pan and into the proverbial fire.”
That fire will almost certainly involve the Avengers. One of the storylines set in motion by Brave New World sees Sam tasked by Ross with assembling a new group. “I think that Avengers teams are best when they are led by a Captain America,” says Moore. “And this movie gives us a little bit of space to talk about, ‘Where are the Avengers? What does it mean to have Avengers, and is Sam the right guy to lead them?’”
Whether or not we see that team at the end of this movie remains to be seen. But place your bets now on it having reinforcements in the shape of Torres (“I’m incredibly excited to continue throwing down,” says Ramirez, tentatively), and maybe — just maybe — one Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross, and a certain scarlet-skinned strongman. “I’m awaiting my new assignment,” teases Ford. “I think it’ll be fascinating to see where that character goes, if he goes anywhere.”
Mackie is keeping mum on Sam’s position within the Avengers, but he’s enthusiastic about reuniting with the Russo brothers on Avengers: Doomsday, which will see the return of Robert Downey Jr, this time as the new Big Bad of the MCU, Doctor Doom. “I’m really looking forward to getting back on set with the Russos,” says Mackie. “They understand this Marvel world in a very unique way. And just having him [Downey Jr] back adds so much. To see what he brings to the table is just a huge opportunity.”
Heaven help the poor sod who has to put together the call sheet for that one. At least one number will be set in stone. “When I finish,” laughs Mackie, “I want them to retire number six!” Its days are surely numbered.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD IS IN CINEMAS FROM FEBRUARY 14, 2025
Empire, February 2025
