Working within a universe the size of the Marvel Cinematic Universe can sometimes mean having limits on what can and can't be done to bring a film from the storyboard to movie theaters. The MCU's new Captain America, Anthony Mackie, knows these limits from his time in the massive franchise and dealing with the “controlled environment” of a Marvel Studios production like Captain America: Brave New World.
Mackie spoke about the creative limits he has deal with working in the MCU while speaking with UK's Radio Times about his TV series Twisted Metal and the differences between the two, according to Variety. He revealed that while he had more freedom to craft his character John Doe for the series, since he was an original creation for the show with no ties to the video games, he doesn't have that same freedom in the MCU due to the wealth of comic book history to pull from.
He did not say this was a detriment, as reflected by the MCU's success, but simply a different process where one can “entertain” changes and ideas more freely than the other.
“That’s the hard thing about the Marvel universe. It’s like, you can’t really go outside of the lines of those comic books,” Mackie said. “You know, when we introduced the Falcon, and the growth of the Falcon to Captain America, all of that had to coincide with what Stan had already gave us. So it’s an interesting juggle to be a part of that world. And this was more like, ‘Let’s just have fun and figure it out as we go.”
Difference in visions
It isn't the first time fans have heard about these creative limits and the push-and-pull that comes with working in a franchise like the MCU, even among the studio heads.
The early days of the MCU were reportedly plagued with issues between Kevin Feige, then-president of production at Marvel Studios, and Ike Perlmutter, then-CEO of Marvel Entertainment, over differing images of what the MCU could look like. Feige's original vision for the MCU would have seen characters like Black Panther, Shang-Chi, Doctor Strange, and Black Widow be bigger fixtures of the universe much earlier, but Perlmutter did not believe films starring these characters would have been successful.
It was reportedly Perlmutter's decision to recast Don Cheadle as James Rhodes after Terrence Howard, who portrayed Rhodes in 2008's Iron Man, wanted a pay raise for the sequel that the notoriously frugal Perlmutter was not keen to pay.
Issues reportedly reached a “boiling point” by 2015 and Perlmutter was ready to fire Feige before Disney CEO Bob Iger stepped in, saying that Feige would instead report to then-chairman of Walt Disney Studios Alan Horn. Perlmutter would remain the head of Marvel Entertainment until he was laid off in 2023 as the division was folded more directly into Disney's operations.
Captain America: Brave New World is scheduled to release in theaters on February 14, 2025.
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