Steve Rogers Will Appear In Avengers: Infinity War But Not As Captain America

The Sentinel of Liberty No More?

♦According to our friends over at MovieWeb, Chris Evans will be in the next Avengers film but he won’t be Captain America…

With Captain America: Civil War hitting Digital HD on 2 September, the Russo brothers have been doing the press rounds, and last week they dropped quite a big bombshell, confirming that Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers is no longer Captain America. If you haven’t caught Civil War yet, there will be SPOILERS ahead so read on at your own risk.

At the end of Captain America: Civil War, after the epic one-on-one fight between Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) and Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) Cap drops his iconic shield, and we never see him pick it up again. The Huffington Post spoke to the Russo Brothers, who confirmed that, yes, it is true that Steve Rogers is dropping the Captain America identity. Here’s what Joe Russo had to say below.

“I think him dropping that shield is him letting go of that identity. [It’s] him admitting that certainly the identity of Captain America was in conflict with the very personal choice that he was making.”

Of course, just because Steve Rogers isn’t Captain America anymore, that doesn’t mean that he won’t be appearing in Infinity War. Writer Christopher Markus teased that Steve Rogers will still be “helpful” in taking down the “big purple guy” who’s coming, Thanos (Josh Brolin), while the Huffington Post speculates that Steve Rogers could turn into The Nomad, which happens in the Marvel Comics series after Cap becomes disillusioned with the government, which certainly happened in Civil War. Obviously, that hasn’t been confirmed, but hopefully we shall glean more as we get closer to Avengers: Infinity War starting production.

In a separate interview with Entertainment Weekly, interestingly the Russo Brothers offered new details on what the third Captain America movie could have been, if Robert Downey Jr. had not agreed to return. The actor had fulfilled his Marvel contract after making Avengers: Age of Ultron, and had to re-negotiate a new deal, although both the studio and the actor were “playing hardball.” The directors revealed that it was “never a given” that Civil War was going to be the third movie, and one of the alternate takes they were looking at would have focused on the Madbomb, which would have set Captain America against a horde of zombie-like humans. Here’s what Anthony Russo had to say about the Madbomb story.

 “There was a period where we did discuss a third act that revolved around the Madbomb from Cap mythology. It didn’t have anything to do with Civil War, and if we couldn’t get Downey – in the very, very early conversations before we nailed him – somebody pitched the idea of a third-act that revolved around the Madbomb, which makes people crazy. It almost like zombifies them – but not literally. The charm of the Madbomb is that you turn hordes of people into berserkers. That was the physical challenge that Cap and company would have had to face.”

The Madbomb story was written and illustrated by comics legend Jack Kirby in 1976, which featured a device similar to an atomic bomb, which emitted sonic waves and radiation to destroy the minds of everyone within the blast radius. The device was created by a group of wealthy citizens known as the Elite, with plans to detonate it during America’s bicentennial to create anarchy, so the rich could rebuild from the country’s ashes. The victims were still alive, but had extremely violent tendencies that could not be controlled. If they would have gone with this story for the film, then it was have been Daniel Bruhl’s Baron Zemo who would have set off the Madbomb.

After Robert Downey Jr. signed his new deal, they killed the Madbomb concept, which interestingly was actually later used in the Season 1 finale of ABC’s Agent Carter. Captain America: Civil War will debut on Digital HD on 2 September, and on Blu-ray and DVD 13 September. Keep your eyes peeled here for details and footage from the home video release, and for more on Avengers: Infinity War as things get closer to the production starting.

www.movieweb.com