Captain America: Civil War was one of the bigger news items to come out of Marvel’s massive announcement of the Phase Three slate. Not only will it introduce Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther to the cinematic universe, it will also pit Chris Evans’ Captain America against Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man. But, as one of Marvel’s screenwriters reminded us recently, we’ll see the first seeds of discord planted in The Avengers: Age of Ultron in May.
Collider recently spoke with Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the writing duo who’ve been working on a number of Marvel projects. In addition to writing the first two Captain America movies and the Agent Carter series, they have returned to pen Civil War. However, as McFeely revealed, they did not have any involvement in that scene we saw from Age of Ultron that sets up tension between the star-spangled Avenger and the billionaire playboy philanthropist.
Obviously I’m glad they put that in there, but I don’t even know the relationship between when we decided to [do] Civil War and when that scene was put in, so it could just be good tension, a good scene. But it’s a clean set up. It’s a good intro."
The scene in question sees the two heroes chopping wood outside an unknown house in the middle of the woods. Based on early images and footage from the trailers, we presume the Avengers need some place to hide after Ultron ravages Stark Tower. While completing their chore, the two have a philosophical disagreement about Stark’s decision to make Ultron behind everyone’s back. As he says, "Every time someone tries to win a war before it starts innocent people die… every time." Watch it for yourself:
While the details on Captain America: Civil War are still unknown and probably will be until we’re closer to its May 6, 2016, release, the basic premise is presumably taken from the famous comic book arc of the same name. Following certain events — perhaps in the film it will be a result of the surprise discovery of super-powered beings Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver — the government implements a Superhero Registration Act that requires any beings with superpowers to register with them. Based on his previous acts and what we’ve seen in Age of Ultron so far, it’s obvious Stark will take the government’s side. In creating Ultron, he wanted to stop chaos without the need of superheroes, and we know he already has the Hulkbuster suit good to go in the event Hulk ever got too crazy to handle. A registration act, then, seems like something he’d get behind. Cap, however, is still our boy in red, white and blue, and he will fight Stark on this — both philosophically and physically.
There’ve been many potential spoilers floating around the Internet, but Anthony Mackie, who has re-enlisted for the Civil War as Falcon, describes this next installment as "Avengers 3.8." So we can assume that a Captain America movie will once again change the entire course of the MCU.
