Marvel Studios just dropped new images of the upcoming movie Captain America: Brave New World, with Anthony Mackie reprising his role as Sam Wilson/The Falcon, Entertainment Weekly reported.
The film is set to be released in theaters on Feb, 14, 2025.
The actor first played Falcon in the 2014 movie Captain America: The Winter Soldier. He also headlined the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier opposite Stan Sebastian as Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier.
It's a Brave New World for Anthony Mackie and Harrison Ford
The series picked up from the end of 2019's Avengers: Endgame when Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) gave his vibranium shield to Sam to become the next Captain America.
In Brave New World, not only does he get to truly be Cap, he has a new mandate: to assemble the new Avengers.
Kevin Feige, Marvel Studios president, welcomed Mackie and showed the crowd footage from the film at Caesar's Palace's Colosseum at CinemaCon.
The footage included Harrison Ford's debut as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, which William Hurt originated in the 2008 film The Incredible Hulk to Endgame as Secretary of State. In the upcoming movie, Ross is now the new President of the United States, and he has a friendlier relationship with Mackie's Cap.
The scene also showed Ross welcoming Sam to the white house, expressing his gratitude for his past heroics. Even though superheroes aren't exactly Ross' favorite people, he acknowledges Sam's efforts and asks him to reform the Avengers. However, they discover a leak among Ross' people.
An old-school song suddenly interrupts a White House presentation which triggers sleeper super-soldiers (like the ones in The Winter Soldier) to attack the President. Also in the room is Isaiah Bradley, played by Carl Lumbly, reprising his role from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
Mackie told EW that it made more sense for the movie's storyline to be grounded in espionage instead of aliens and portals.
“Even though I've been in so many of them and have seen it all now, the opportunity for Sam to really establish himself as a true action star and Avenger comes with this movie,” he added.
The actor also stated that the new movie feels “10 times bigger” than the series.
“One of the biggest conversations we had from the beginning was for this not to be Falcon and the Winter Soldier — Part 2, for this to be its own movie with its own story, with its own characters,” he continued.
The Falcon and The Winter Soldier break up
However, this movie will not have Stan's The Winter Soldier. Instead, it will have Joaquin Torres, played by Danny Ramirez.
Joaquin is the IT guy at Sam's work, and in the comics he also ends up becoming Falcon.
“They're both military guys. I was his commanding officer. We have more of a friendship as opposed to the way I admired Steve or the way I didn't like Bucky,” Mackie explained.
It seems that that's the same reason Ross thinks more highly of Dam that he did Steve, a shared background.
However, in the same vein, “There is that idea of keeping your guard up and watching your back when it comes to each other,” Mackie added.
The Incredible Hulk characters' comeback
Also returning from The Incredible Hulk are Ruth (Shira Haas), Betty (Ross' daughter, played by Liv Tyler) and Samuel Sterns aka the Leader (Tim Blake Nelson). In the 2008 film, The Leader was taken in to S.H.I.E.L.D. custody due to his mutation after Bruce Banner's blood was injected into his system.
Mackie insists that his movie “is a clear reset.”
“It really reestablishes the idea of what this universe is and what this universe is going to be. I think with these movies, you're getting a clear, new branding of what Marvel is headed towards the same way they did with Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” he elaborated.
The movie's title does give credence to that idea, even though it could be referencing Aldoux Huxley's 1932 novel.
“From Captain America: The First Avenger to Endgame, the enemy was always good versus bad. Now that we've conquered that, where do we go from here? When the bad guys reappear, in what form are they reappearing? It is a new storyline with new characters, with new beliefs, and it creates a new idea of this new world that we're going into,” Mackie said.
While I'm sad that we're not going to get more of the Sam-Bucky bromance, the different dynamic of Sam-Joaquin may end up being interesting as well. Or maybe even a Thunderbolt-Sam one?
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