The Screenwriters of 'Captain America: Civil War' Answer 5 Burning Questions (SPOILERS!)

It looks like Marvel Studios has found its screenwriting equivalent of Captain America and Iron Man in Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. After penning Captain America: Winter Soldier, which became an instant canon favorite upon its release in 2014, the duo (who had previously written Thor: The Dark World, all three Narnia movie, and the Mark Wahlberg-Dwayne Johnson action-comedy Pain & Gain) was reenlisted for the follow-up,Captain America: Civil War, now in theaters. Not only that, but they’ve also been c-harged with reassembling Marvel’s A-Team in the still-to-be-titled Avengers: Infinity War, coming in 2018 and 2019.

Like any Marvel adventure, Civil War introduces new c-haracters (i.e., Black Panther, Spider-Man, and Zemo) and conflicts (too many to name) while also continuing and/or resolving storylines f-rom films past. The threequel also raises plenty of questions. To answer five of those, we went to Markus and McFeely for the behind-the-scenes scoop.

Warning: Big-time Civil War spoilers ahead!

1. When did Spidey come into the picture?

Marvel Studios announced that it had come to an agreement with Sony, which controls the cinematic rights to Spider-Man, in February 2015, allowing the web-slinger to join the MCU. But Markus and McFeely had been aware of the possibility as soon as the project becameCivil War (sometime around Marvel’s Phase Three announcement in October 2014). “At one point we were told, basically like, ‘Run scenarios for a movie that Spider-Man would be in. We don’t have him yet, but we might ask,’” Markus remembered.

Related: The Long Fight to Land Spider-Man in 'Captain America: Civil War’

“So we worked up some scenes and had some spots for him, and then he was out. And then relatively late in the day he came back. And because he always appeared in that recruitment section, we were able to leave that kind of baggy and self-contained, and not tied to too many other things, so he could come and go if we wanted him. Plus we could expand or contract Black Panther in the movie to sort of fill the hole if Peter Parker wasn’t going to be in the movie. So we had good options.”

 

 

 

 

Anthony and Joe Russo Talk Spider-Man in ‘Captain America: Civil War’

Before Tom Holland swings into theaters July 2017 with Spider-Man: Homecoming, he’ll greet audiences in Captain America: Civil War. Yahoo Movies had the opportunity to sit down with Civil War’s directors, Anthony and Joe Russo. We asked the Russo brothers exactly when they knew they were going to get use your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man in their film.

2. So the plan wasn’t always to unveil Black Panther?

Nope. Initially the plan was to just meet T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman), plain-clothed future King of Wakanda, and to save the actual Black Panther reveal for his upcoming solo movie (if another Marvel movie didn’t co-opt it first). “You can get a lot of good stuff out of just plain old T'Challa,” Markus said. “So at one point we had [T'Challa] and Spider-Man and then Spider-Man went out and we were like, 'Well, we have a guy who owns a superhero costume, let’s have him put it on.’ So it wasn’t so much that we didn’t want him, it’s how much of this are we going to burn off in one movie?”

McFeely thinks the move will ultimately pay dividends for the Boseman-starring franchise, which will start with 2018’s Black Panther, directed by Creed’s Ryan Coogler. “Black Panther was always going to do very well,” he said. “But I think a lot people will be very excited because he’s already been sort of presented in a movie that they were going to see anyway.”

Related: Meet Black Panther: The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s New Breakout Hero

3. Did they consider killing Captain America?

We just saw Superman “killed” in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and many fans wondered if Cap might have the same fate given that he’s assassinated (at least temporarily) in the aftermath of the Civil War storyline in the comics. “We never really went into this with the intention of killing Cap,” Markus revealed. “One, because he doesn’t really die, so we weren’t going to do the time bullet [like in the comics]. And there are other movies coming, and it’s like, 'Are you gonna kill him?’ And you get crap for fake-killing people. We fake-killed [Nick] Fury [in Winter Soldier] and it worked pretty well, but… At a certain point you’re lessening the gravity of the movie when you kill somebody, because people are like, 'Oh now we’re in comic-book world because he’s gonna come back.’ So you get more gravity out really hurting somebody.” Someone like, say, War Machine.