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When news broke that Seth Rollins had been cast in a role in the fourth Captain America movie, Captain America: Brave New World, it got fans of WWE and beyond hyped.
Soon, “The Visionary” would get to show off his over-the-top supervillain energy in an actual supervillain role and, in doing so, might actually create the next WWE crossover star, thrusting Rollins into the same realm as John Cena, The Rock, and Batista before him.
And yet, that excitement was short-lived, as in the weeks proceeding, Rollins was kicked to the curb by the Marvel machine, with his role cut from the film for unknown reasons.
Asked about this development in an interview with Comicbook.com, director Julius Onah broke down why Rollins won't be in the final film, which has more to do with the sudden availability of Giancarlo Esposito than any issues with his acting chops.
“When you’re taking characters like Serpent Society from publishing, who, as you know, are individuals dressed up as snakes and have snake-adjacent powers, you’re always iterating and trying to figure out the version that totally works best in a movie like this. I love Seth Rollins, Seth’s incredible. But as we were evolving and we knew we had an additional photography period, just one that we did early on in the process that’s planned,” Onah explained.
“We were trying to figure out, ‘Hey, who’s somebody that can bring a very specific kind of gravitas that works with this tone.’ When Giancarlo [Esposito] became available, it was such a no-brainer. I have a very particular history with him. He’s iconic for working with Spike Lee. I interned with Spike Lee when I was 19 years old. Of course, fans have been fan-casting him for a long time in the MCU. So it’s really about making sure that all the elements worked in the grounded tone and vision that I have for this film. As we evolved and iterated, Giancarlo just made sense. What a blessing to have in this film.”
While the idea of removing an entire supervillain faction from a movie seems crazy at first blush, the idea isn't actually as wild as some fans may think; Marvel movies are often scheduled for multiple rounds of filming, and if Onah didn't believe that the Serpent Society was working as originally constructed, the idea of swapping them out for Esposito isn't that crazy, even if it probably drove the screenwriters that way due to the added workload.
Will it be weird to watch Captain America 4 knowing that a certain “Monday Night Messiah” could have been yucking it up on screen in a villainous role? Sure thing, but hey, that's showbiz, baby; one day, you're on top of the world, and the next day, you're nobody. Fortunately for Seth Rollins, this nobody is likely going to have a triple threat with CM Punk and Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 41, so that's a pretty good consolation prize, all things considered.
