It was just a couple weeks ago that Marvel Studios absolutely blew the doors off of Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con, presenting footage from Alan Taylor’s Thor: The Dark World, Joe and Anthony Russo’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier and James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy. The reels that they showed featured all kinds of awesome superhero and sci-fi action, showing that the comic book studio has some big things in store for both the rest of 2013 and 2014.
And today at the D23 Expo we got to see all of it again… plus a little bit extra. Earlier this morning the bi-annual Disney convention had its big live-action film presentation in the arena of the Anaheim Convention Center, and during the Marvel Studios portion of the event they showed off exclusive new clips from both the upcoming Thor and Captain America sequels. But what exactly did we get to see?
Set during Jane Foster’s (Natalie Portman) first day on Asgard, the Thor: The Dark World clip began with Jane lying on a table and being studied by scientists. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) looks on with concern as the scientists discuss that there is an energy in Jane that is potentially fatal. Rather than being scared, Jane instead seems kind of giddy to be surrounded by strange, new technology. Odin (Sir Anthony Hopkins) then bursts into the room and is angry about Jane’s presence in Asgard, but Jane is just impressed that he actually knows who she is (definite boyfriend points for the God of Thunder). Odin orders that Jane be sent back to Midgard (a.k.a. Earth), but when a guard comes to grab her he is instantly repelled. It would seem that the energy is defending itself… but what does it mean?
Next up in the presentation was Captain America: The Winter Soldier , which featured another exclusive clip for the D23 audience. The scene began with the titular hero (Chris Evans), in full costume, standing with Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson) in a Quinjet flying high in the air above a large body of water. The bay door opens and they are clearly about to embark on a mission, but they don’t seem nervous at all. Instead they just casually shoot the breeze. Widow asks Cap if he got up to anything over the weekend, and the patriotic hero jokingly replies that all of the guys from his barbershop quartet are dead. Widow says that if he were to ask out a girl they both know that she would say yes, but Cap explains that that’s why he hasn’t asked her. With his shield strapped to his back, Cap then leaps out of the plane to the water below. Brock Rumlow (Frank Grillo) comes up from behind Widow and notes that the super soldier wasn’t wearing a parachute.
After a long fall, Cap lands in the water and begins to climb up the anchor of a large ship. He silently takes out an armed guard and begins to move across the boat, taking out all of the enemies he comes across. The fighting is extremely stylish and Cap takes out the guards with both his shield and his fists. As more bad guys swarm, suddenly Black Widow and Brock arrive to help Cap kick some ass, and Black Widow and Cap continue their casual conversation about dating. Black Widow then jumps down into the belly of the ship firing her pistols, and the screen cuts.
The rest of the presentation was filled with early looks at movies like Muppets Most Wanted, Maleficent, Saving Mr. Banks and more, so be sure to check out my live blog for my minute-by-minute coverage.
UPDATE! We've recently learned that Thor: The Dark World is doing reshoots in order to add more Loki.
