In an interview with
/Film while promoting
Pain & Gain, screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely talk about their work on two upcoming Marvel sequels -
Thor: The Dark World and
Captain America: The Winter Soldier. They discuss the differences in working on the two characters, with Markus saying,
"Cap is much more about realism. They’re tonally quite different genres, almost, so things get a lot more way out in Thor so the chance of tonal overlap is pretty slim.". McFeely adds,
"We’re inheriting that story so we didn’t come up with the story for Thor 2. We just came in and said ‘How can we tell this better and differently?’ So your question doesn’t really come up to us. We say ‘Here’s the problem Thor is dealing with. These are the people and this is the plot. How do we balance character and plot efficiently here?’ And we do the same thing with Cap, but in that case we’re just on it for much longer."
The duo also comment on the sequels' connections to
The Avengers 2, as well as their writing process for films that lead up to another. McFeely says,
"Kevin is the dungeon master, so if there’s something we really need to know, he’ll tell us, but he doesn’t steer us. With rare exceptions does he say ‘We can’t do that because of this next movie.’ More often than not he’ll say ‘Let’s get this movie right and whatever falls out after that,we’ll address in the next movie. We’ll make sure that we don’t steer that movie in the wrong direction.’" Markus intriguingly states the following, mentioning loyalties in reference to Joss Whedon's hugely anticipated follow-up.
"And more often than not, when you’re thinking of the movies as a whole, it’s ‘What do you want the state of the world to be when Avengers 2 kicks off?’ It’s never like, Cap has to put down a brief case so the Hulk can pick it up. It’s never that specific. It’s sort of like, ‘Where do you want loyalties to lie when that movie opens?’"
Finally, McFeely talks about
Captain America: The Winter Soldier's tone, reiterating that it feels like a different genre and that it's a modern political thriller. He also teases Steve Rogers' fighting in the sequel.
"It’ll feel like a different genre, we can say that. We’re very proud of the first one because it was our love letter, and Joe Johnson’s love letter, to Indiana Jones, so it had that Forties vibe to it. This is much more of a modern conspiracy political thriller. So it’s a fast ride. The action will fell commensurate. You’ll see Cap fight in a way that you have never seen before, or at least not for him. The DNA is the same, but the animal is different." For more from Markus and McFeely, click the source link below.
Thor: The Dark World opens November 8th this year;
Captain America: The Winter Soldier will be released April 4th, 2014;
The Avengers 2 arrives May 1st, 2015.