Captain America 4 Footage Reaction: Harrison Ford Wants Sam Wilson To Rebuild The Avengers [CinemaCon 2024]
Marvel Studios has been quiet for a little while, but Kevin Feige and company made a splash at CinemaCon 2024 by showing off several minutes of footage from one of their next big movies.
One of the most astonishing things about the 15-year-long cultural phenomenon of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that they managed to get a mass audience to care about limp characters like Thor and Captain America. As a comics reader in the 1990s, I recall that those who read Thor and Captain America books were snickered at; the X-Men, Batman, Spider-Man, and the then-rising Image Comics characters were considered way cooler. Thanks to the MCU, however, Captain America (previously played by Chris Evans) was now hip, and his movie "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" is often vaunted — rather debatably — as one of the best films in the long-running series.
At the end of 2019's "Avengers: Endgame," Captain America was able to travel back in time, marry his 1940s girlfriend, and age into an old man, happy to no longer be a superhero. He handed off his saucer-like shield to Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), and the TV miniseries "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" detailed how Sam transformed himself from a hero called the Falcon into the new Captain America. The upcoming film "Captain America: Brave New World" will feature the adventures of the new Cap. The superhero craze is dying down, but Marvel still has a few more chapters to churn out on the downward slope (and naturally they hope to reverse that trend).
It's currently unclear if the new film will take any plot details from the eponymous Aldous Huxley novel, although we do know the film will also star Harrison Ford (replacing William Hurt's MCU character), Danny Ramirez, Carl Lumbly, Tim Blake Nelson, and Liv Tyler. /Film's own Ryan Scott has his feet on the ground at this year's CinemaCon in Las Vegas, Nevada, and he saw a nice little chunk of footage from "Captain America: Brave New World," plus a rapid-fire teaser. Here's what happened.
Captain America: Brave New World footage reaction
Nobody can ever accuse Marvel Studios of failing to take advantage of an opportunity. Although opinions have turned firmly mixed on the Marvel Cinematic Universe in recent years following "Avengers: Endgame," when the franchise seemed to reach its natural conclusion, one bright spot on the horizon has been the promise of the next "Captain America" movie. However, the highly-anticipated production has seen the shine come off its shield (so to speak) following a lengthy delay along with an almost never-ending stream of reports about significant reshoots (and even a major title change, to boot). Well, Kevin Feige read the room and came out swinging.
/Film's Ryan Scott has been our man on the ground at CinemaCon and he relayed info directly from the Disney panel, where he watched the lengthy reel and summarized all the high-flying action for our benefit. Feige himself came on stage to hype the film as "another relatively grounded action thriller," while Mackie chimed in to wax nostalgic about his introduction in "The Winter Soldier" and earnestly state that, "Nothing can account for starting in these movies 10 years ago and getting to make my own Marvel movie." In terms of actual footage, the action begins with a full scene set in the White House with Wilson meeting Harrison Ford's President Thunderbolt Ross (sans mustache, interestingly enough). His take on the character (he's taking over for the late William Hurt) seems very different, and a little less animated than what Hurt brought to the screen. "What you did down in Mexico opened my eyes," Ross says to Sam Wilson (a very in-his-element Anthony Mackie). "Even I can't deny the good you've done."
Ross mentions needing Wilson to "help me rebuild the Avengers," and later, at a presentation about how the discovery of the millennia was stolen from a mining site (Ross thanks Captain America for getting it back), some music interrupts the presentation and all hell breaks loose. The music has trigged some sleeper agents, including Carl Lumbly's Isaiah Bradley, who initiates a shootout along with several other agents. Ford hits the deck covered in glass and punches someone out. From there, a quick teaser montage includes shots of Wilson's new suit and wings (it seems more blue than it did in "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier"), lots of espionage intrigue, and a more "old-school MCU" feel.
"Captain America: Brave New World" arrives in theaters February 14, 2025.