Captain America: Brave New World
Marvel has unleashed the first official trailer for Captain America: Brave New World, the fourth film in the series but one without Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers — who allowed to live a peaceful life through time travel at the end of Avengers Endgame.
Now, the mantle has been taken on by Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson, whom we saw struggling with the responsibility of the shield in his own miniseries, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier all the way back in 2021. Bucky is supposedly not in this movie at all, instead headed to the Thunderbolts, something the actors have lamented publicly.
The new trailer channels Captain America: The Winter Soldier more than the other two, I’d say, painting it as an action-filled espionage thriller which has Wilson hunting down some sort of conspiracy against President Thaddeus Ross, recast from William Hurt in the technically canon Incredible Hulk, whereas Bruce Banner himself of course also shifted from Ed Norton to Mark Ruffalo. But we have seen Tim Roth’s Abomination in the MCU in She-Hulk, and Liv Tyler will reportedly return as Betty Ross in this film.
In the trailer we see Giancarlo Esposito’s mystery, supposedly non-comic character that appears to be behind the explosive events of the film, along with The Leader, who has already been announced. But in the end, we also get a teaser of the arrival of Red Hulk, who is also being used in promotional posters.
Captain America: Brave New World
If you follow the comics, you of course know who Red Hulk is in human form, unless they’ve wildly changed the source material. That would of course be Ross himself so yeah, the President is a Hulk. A bad Hulk, usually, and clearly he’ll be fighting Captain America.
The film has a release date of February 14, 2025, the next Marvel movie after Deadpool and Wolverine this July. It’s been the subject of controversy involving alleged story rewrites and reshoots. One point of contention is that the movie allegedly features Sabra, an Israeli superhero, a concept crafted before the current Israel/Gaza war. Unless I missed it, I did not see her appear in the trailer.
It remains to be seen how a Steve Rogers-less Captain America movie will perform. It would be a big deal for any of the main heroes to switch the person who plays them, even if taking up the “mantle” is appropriate for the story. This obviously follows comic plotlines but it’s a big deal for Marvel to try and make a new Avengers leader out of Wilson, heading into a pair of new Avengers movie. That is if he is meant to be the leader like Steve Rogers was, and that remains to be seen.
The trailer looks solid enough, albeit nothing too jaw-dropping, I’d say. We’ll get more promotion before February, to be sure.
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