Although we know who the majority of the people in Captain America: Brave New World’s cast are playing, there are a few actors whose roles in the upcoming Marvel movie haven’t been officially identified yet. Among those people is WWE superstar Seth Rollins, who's fresh off reportedly being injured and whose other film credits include Sharknado: The 4th Awakens and Like A Boss. Unfortunately, if a new rumor about Brave New World proves to be true, there’s bad news ahead for Rollins’ fans.
While Marvel Studios has been keeping mum on Seth Rollins’ Captain America 4 role, leaked set photos and various reports have pointed to him playing King Cobra, one of the founding members of the Serpent Society. Alegedly the supervillain team would be used for a major opening action sequence in Brave New World’s first act (akin to how Captain America: The Winter Soldier used Batroc the Leaper) involving not just Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson, but also Danny Ramirez’s Joaquin Torres, a.k.a. the new Falcon, and Carly Lumbly’s Isaiah Bradley. However, according to scooper @CanWeGetSomeToast (via ComicBookMovie), the Serpent Society has been removed from the movie, meaning that we wouldn’t see Rollins at all.
This news arrives a little over a month after it was reported that Matthew Orton was hired to write “additional scenes and material” for Captain America: Brave New World, which would then be shot in this spring or summer. So in the months ahead of these reshoots, it’s now being claimed that the Serpent Society’s removal is one of the ways the movie is being altered, although let’s take this information with a grain of salt for now. If it proves to be true though, it marks another stroke of bad Marvel-related luck in Rollins’ family, as his wife, fellow wrestler Becky Lynch, was reportedly cut from Eternals.
It’s also worth mentioning that back in August 2023, it was rumored that Tim Blake Nelson’s Samuel Sterns, who we’ll finally see as The Leader following that tease way back in The Incredible Hulk, will be the Serpent Society’s “secret benefactor.” If the nefarious group is removed from Brave New World, then how does this impact Leader’s plans? Will he simply be behind a different threat that opens the movie, or will the opening act be a more self-contained affair, separate from what the presumed main antagonist is plotting?
Along with the aforementioned individuals, Brave New World will also feature the return of Liv Tyler as Betty Ross, as well as the MCU debuts of Shira Haas and Harrison Ford, with the former playing Sabra and the latter taking over as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross from the late William Hurt. Behind the scenes, Julius Noah directed and wrote the script with Orton, Malcolm Spellman and Dalan Musson, the latter two having previously worked on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. It will conclude the MCU’s Phase 5 slate of movies, which began in February 2023 with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
Barring no further delays, Captain America: Brave New World opens in theaters on February 14, 2025. Use your Disney+ subscription to revisit Sam Wilson and his allies’ past MCU adventures, or just watch all of the Marvel movies in order again.
