Breaking Bad and The Mandalorian star Giancarlo Esposito was a firm fan favourite to join the MCU, with everyone from Professor X to Doctor Doom often ranking among the most popular suggestions (Magneto was another).
When the actor was tapped for a role in Captain America: Brave New World, we initially heard that he'd be playing the relatively obscure G. W. Bridge. Instead, he was eventually revealed to be Seth Voelker, a.k.a. Sidewinder, the leader of the "Serpents," a toned-down version of the Serpent Society.
Original plans called for us to get a comic-accurate take on the villainous group, superpowers and all. Before the movie's opening sequence was scrapped, the idea was seemingly for Esposito to join them...as King Cobra!
The actor has confirmed his role changed after he was tapped by Marvel Studios to join the Captain America: Brave New World cast.
"It was supposed to come out in March of 2024, and they decided they wanted to make some changes," Esposito told Empire. "I was on the phone with [producer] Nate Moore, who prepped me to be, possibly, a character called King Cobra, which I loved, because if I'm walking around the neighborhood, African-Americans go, 'What's up, King?' I love it."
"They call me King, baby! I mean, that's the highest honor. But as it turned out, there [are other Kings] in the Marvel world, and this was connected to the Serpent Society - they were going back to the comics and trying to figure it out, and Nate said, 'We can give you all the characteristics of King, but we think he should be Sidewinder.'"
"And they spoke about creating a character that was really grounded, in a mercenary fashion. They wanted to ground the movie when they went back in to do some additional shooting, and their focus now was on this additional character," he continued. "So it was a bit of a whirlwind for me. I focused myself and I went in there and knocked it out. And I'm hoping to be in this universe a little longer."
Reading between the lines, it seems likely that Esposito was meant to fight alongside the Serpent Society members played by Seth Rollins and Rosa Salazar's Diamondback. Both were dropped from Captain America: Brave New World's final cut after extensive reshoots.
In the comics, Klaus Voorhees/King Cobra was an ex-convict working with the humanitarian medical researcher Professor Ezekiel Shecktor in India on a universal antitoxin for snake venom. Jealous of Shecktor's success, Voorhees plotted to kill him and make the murder look like an accident.
He induced one of the cobras kept in the laboratory to bite both Shecktor and himself and planned to use the universal antitoxin to save himself from death. Unknown to Voorhees, the cobra had been irradiated, resulting in him gaining cobra-like powers. As a result, he came a criminal.
Captain America: Brave New World is now playing in theaters.