RW459 - MCU Rewatch - Captain America: Civil War

 

In this episode of The Marvel Cinematic Universe Rewatch, Cory and Nathan come under friendly fire as they discuss "Captain America: Civil War."

Trailer:

Our Favourite Trivia:

In March 2014, Anthony and Joe Russo confirmed that they had signed on to return as directors for a third Captain America film, along with Chris Evans as Captain America, Kevin Feige as producer, and Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely as screenwriters. Markus and McFeely had been working on the screenplay since late 2013, while the Russo brothers began work in February 2014. The re-hiring of the directors, three months before the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, came as a result of Marvel executives being impressed with test screenings of that film. Evans earned $15 million for the film.

In an April 2014 interview, Joe Russo described the project as a continuation of the story from Captain America: The Winter Soldier: "What's nice about the film is that ... it's a two-parter. There's a journey that the Winter Soldier goes on that isn't complete yet."

By October 2014, Robert Downey Jr. had entered final negotiations to reprise his role as Tony Stark / Iron Man in the film. Downey was added in order for the film to adapt the 2006–07 "Civil War" comic book storyline written by Mark Millar, which pitted Iron Man against Captain America.

With a budget of $250 million, this movie is tied as the fourth-most expensive superhero movie ever made, after Justice League (2017) ($300 million), Superman Returns (2006) ($270 million), and Spider-Man 3 (2007) ($258 million).

In an interview, Daniel Brühl (Zemo) said the budget for this movie was so huge that you could make twenty films from it.

Executives at Marvel Entertainment balked at the idea of Captain America and Iron Man coming to blows at the end of the film and wanted the Avengers to unite to fight Zemo and the super soldiers at the Hydra base in Siberia instead. The Russos were not happy with this idea, with Joe Russo saying, "There's nothing interesting about that film. We're not here to make that movie. We're not interested in telling another superhero story." Feige supported the Russos, who were going to leave the film if the changes were mandated on them.

Marvel initially wanted to hire Robert Downey Jr. to reprise Tony Stark as a small role, with just three weeks of work. However, Downey wanted a larger role, which would lead to a bigger payday. Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter was furious over the request, prompting him to order the screenwriters to write Tony Stark out of the script completely. When the deal seemed like it was off the table, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige pushed to hire Downey, citing that his casting in the film could leave the door open for sequels, new franchises, and dramatic possibilities within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as this movie could drive future storylines for these films. As a result with Downey's casting, the actor received a substantial payout that included a back-end participation deal, and another payout if the film's box-office gross exceeded Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), which it did.

Robert Downey Jr. acted as the younger Tony Stark, along with John Slattery and Hope Davis. Lola FX provided the "de-aging" visual effects on the face and hair of Downey with footage and photos of his early career as references.

(at around 1h 19 mins) Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) remarks how attractive Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) is. Downey and Tomei had a relationship in the 1990s, and appeared in two other films together: Chaplin (1992) and Only You (1994).

Although Marisa Tomei only appeared for roughly two minutes in the movie, she still had an assistant on-set.

T'Challa had a much smaller role in the earlier drafts and did not even appear in costume, as the writers intended to put more focus on Spider-Man, and save Black Panther's origin for his own movie. However, when it looked like Marvel would not be getting permission to use Spider-Man, Black Panther's role was beefed up significantly. By the time they did get to use Spider-Man, T'Challa had already become so integral to the plot that they decided to leave his role as it was, and give Spider-Man a smaller part.

Spider-Man was very nearly removed from the film, as Sony Pictures originally rejected Marvel's proposal to allow them a cut of the profit if they could pull Spider-Man over. Despite the disappointment over the financial returns and critical reception of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), the Sony Corporation was still planning to expand their own Spider-Man universe with a Sinister Six spin-off film, Venom (2018) and 'The Amazing Spider-Man 3'. However, when the latter fell through after Sony parted ways with Spider-Man performer Andrew Garfield, they decided to re-negotiate the deal with Marvel again.

Zemo is the first primary antagonist of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies to not be an enhanced supervillain. However, the first one ever in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was Wilson Fisk, a.k.a. Kingpin, on Netflix's Daredevil (2015).

The day before filming a fight scene with Robert Downey Jr., Sebastian Stan sent him a video of himself doing intense bicep curls in front of the decapitated head of an Iron Man suit. He attached the message, "Looking forward to our scene tomorrow Robert".

No CGI was used during the highway chase scene when Bucky commandeers a moving motorcycle from under its rider. The whole stunt was practical.

(at around 1h 50 mins) In one scene, Hawkeye refers to Tony Stark as "the futurist", which was also the title of a 2004 album by Robert Downey Jr. on the Sony Classical label.

The entrance code to the Siberian base is: 17826. On a telephone dial, this becomes "1 STAN".

Stan Lee Cameo: In Captain America: Civil War (2016), Lee appears as a FedEx postman, delivering a package from Steve Rogers to Tony Stark at the end of the film, mispronouncing Stark's name as "Tony Stank".

What's Up Next?

We're back with Bond, James Bond that is. We are finally going to talk about the end of Daniel Craig's run in the role, so we hope you'll join us for our discussion of No Time to Die.

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