There’s a lot of competition on the roster of 2025 movies, especially when it comes to the world of comic movies. With the upcoming Marvel movie Captain America: Brave New World set to be the first entry in that solo series since 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, there’s bound to be a ton of pressure on all involved.
Yet when it came to Anthony Mackie learning that he was going to be the next Cap from predecessor/co-star Chris Evans, there was absolutely no pressure at all. While Mackie’s reaction to learning he’d be the new Cap is something we have heard about previously, the actor went even deeper into the tale when appearing on Fandango’s Big Movies series. The Twisted Metal lead was asked if Chris Evans ever gave him a ‘pep talk’ about inheriting the shield, and that prompted Mackie to start things off with this fond memory:
My relationship with Chris is like [such a] sibling bonded, brother relationship that it was never an idea of, ‘You can’t handle this,’ or ‘you need some information to handle this,’ or ‘this is so much more important than anything else you’ve handled in your life.’ … This is one of those things where his excitement for me becoming Captain America let me know that he knew I could handle it.
Recalling the story where he and his fellow MCU actor were “jumping around in a circle, high-fiving” once Evans had “spoiled” the Avengers: Endgame secret, Anthony Mackie showed great reverence. Well, as much one can when gleefully describing an elaborate story that involved a bit of cloak and dagger that one would expect based on what we know about Captain America 4.
But that story is apparently crazier than anyone had previously known thanks to Chris Evans inviting his castmates to hang out at his temporary residence during the production of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. While this intense shoot let the Russo Brothers to regret their back-to-back production strategy, it did give us this some more hysterical context to this historical moment.
Apparently Evans spoiled Anthony Mackie's promotion through some very MCU theatrics, part of which had convinced Mackie that a new version of Endgame's script he hadn't read was going to kill off Sam Wilson. As you'll read in this anecdote recalled below, that couldn't have been further from the truth:
So we run, in his house he had like a trap door that went to a basement, that was like a man cave of all man caves. … So he comes down, he gets the new script, he goes to like the last 10 pages, and he goes, ‘Read it!’ So me, thinkin’ they just killed me off, he’s just looking at me like, ‘Huh? Huh? Huh?’ So I get to the part, and it’s like I’m reading the scene between us, and it goes, ‘He hands him the shield.’ I’m like, ‘So why’d you give me the shield?’ He’s like, ‘Because your fucking Captain America!’ … I couldn’t imagine finding out any other way.
Like the man himself said, Anthony Mackie is indeed the new Cap! And we’ll get to see his cinematic debut on screens in Captain America: Brave New World, which opens on February 14th. For all things Marvel streaming, don’t forget to use your Disney+ subscription, as The Falcon and the Winter Soldier will more than likely be important viewing for this chapter, as well as Thunderbolts*, in the year to come.
