by Josh Bate for @mar_tesseract
Sunday saw the cast and crew of Marvel Studio’s latest project, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, assemble for a press conference in which they revealed new details about the upcoming Disney+ series. As always, Kevin Feige was there to speak about the show, along with stars Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan, director Kari Skogland, and writer Malcolm Spellman.
The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is led by Anthony Mackie, who’s character Sam Wilson was given the Captain America shield at the end of Avengers: Endgame. At the press conference, Mackie discussed his character’s evolution from when we first saw him compared to now:
“The idea of Sam Wilson, he’s always evolved in the world of the Marvel comic books and now he’s evolved in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If you remember when Sam first started out, he was a hustler, and as African American culture evolved, Stan Lee evolved him into different iterations of himself. I’m excited for the world to see the new and improved version of Sam Wilson.”
Sebastian Stan, the series’ other lead, also discussed his character:
“I’ve spent 12 years with the character,” Stan says. “You grow and evolve with the character…I felt like we had established the character a certain way…then we had to go into this and go, ‘Alright, well, what is he like now?’ Part of that was us honing in on his sense of humor so to speak…that came into the tone of the series and his dynamic with Sam Wilson and my own dynamic with Anthony and then marrying the two…We’re really finally kind of zooming in on his quest for identity and in terms of just really accepting his past and re-educating himself about the world that he’s currently in.”
The Falcon and The Winter Soldier differs from most MCU projects, bar WandaVision, in that it’s a show rather than a film. However, Skogland highlighted that she approached the series as if she was making a movie:
“I approached it like a film. From the beginning, we were making a six hour film and just figuring out where to snip it at the certain hour marks…I look at a lot of different influences to help me put it into a box. I looked as crazy as David Lee or Midnight Cowboy so I really go very wide and then put it in a pot and stir it and come up with something that is uniquely signature for our look.”
As fans will know, the MCU differs in tone depending on the characters in focus. For example, the Ant-Man films are generally more humorous and light in nature than the Captain America trilogy. Screenwriter Spellman discussed this topic, saying:
“There was about a 12 second moment in Civil War where it feels like every single Marvel fan knew that [Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan] were gonna be able to support a movie or a franchise. [The Falcon and The Winter Soldier has] the buddy two-hands genre, [and] what we loved about them is the range, tonally, is you can go from as gritty as 48 Hours to as funny as Rush Hour…it allows Sebastian and Anthony to do what they do and create that magic.”
Despite the series not even premiering yet, fans have been wondering if there will be a second season. Feige addressed these questions, saying:
“It’s a funny question and it’s one that we obviously get asked much more in television because people expect it to be like what people know before. We really did approach it like we do the movies…if we were able to do another one, there’s certainly ideas. The slight difference of course…like with WandaVision, they really will go back and forth between the Disney+ series and the movies…sometimes will be a Season 2, sometimes will be a feature.”
Finally, the cast and crew were asked about the potential for reveals in the show, a natural question given the surprises in WandaVision, in particular the appearance of Evan Peters. Mackie played coy on this topic, but did give a bit of insight:
“Yes, there are many surprises. We can’t say who they all are but there are many surprises.”
The Falcon and The Winter Soldier premieres on Disney+ on March 19. Stay tuned to Marvel Tesseract and SW Holocron for continued coverage of the series!
Images Courtesy of Disney and Marvel Studios. Press conference quotes courtesy of Comicbook.com and Deadline