Captain America: Brave New World opened earlier this year to 46% on Rotten Tomatoes and ended its run at the global box office with a disappointing $415 million.
The movie got caught up in 2023's Hollywood strikes, but was also heavily reshot. All of The Leader's scenes were scrapped, the final battle removed Isaiah Bradley and Sabra, and Giancarlo Esposito's Sidewinder replaced the Serpent Society.
Marvel Studios clearly attempted to fix a movie that wasn't working, but the result was one of the studio's biggest letdowns. Where did it all go wrong for Captain America: Brave New World? Well, according to Kevin Feige, the movie didn't work because it "was the first without Chris Evans."
Anthony Mackie led the cast as Sam Wilson, the MCU's new Captain America. Avengers: Endgame ended with Steve Rogers presenting the former Falcon with the shield, but that was six years ago, and Marvel Studios decided to explore his transformation into the new Captain America in Disney+'s The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.
With the benefit of hindsight, it would have been a wise move for a new Captain America movie to be released in 2021, chronicling Sam's evolution into the star-spangled superhero. Marvel Studios was under a mandate to create new streaming content, though, so it is what it is.
As we reported yesterday, Feige has also weighed in on why Thunderbolts* (which received positive reviews) similarly underperformed. "Thunderbolts* was a very good movie, but nobody knew that title, and many of those characters were from shows," the Marvel Studios President explained. "There was that residual effect of [audiences going], 'I guess I had to have seen these other shows to understand who this is?'"
Moving forward, Marvel Studios will release one TV series per year, and it won't be so closely connected to what happens in theaters. While the shows will be there for fans and non-fans alike to enjoy, it seems the goal is to make it so that the MCU no longer feels like homework.
In Captain America: Brave New World, after meeting with newly elected U.S. President Thaddeus Ross, played by Harrison Ford in his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut, Sam Wilson finds himself in the middle of an international incident. He must discover the reason behind a nefarious global plot before the true mastermind has the entire world seeing red.
The movie stars Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Xosha Roquemore, Carl Lumbly, with Giancarlo Esposito, Liv Tyler, Tim Blake Nelson, and Harrison Ford. The movie is directed by Julius Onah and produced by Kevin Feige and Nate Moore. Louis D’Esposito and Charles Newirth serve as executive producers.
"Flawed but functional, Captain America: Brave New World's many problems are largely forgotten any time Anthony Mackie and Harrison Ford electrify the screen," we said in our review. "And when Red Hulk shows up, the movie reaches new heights of awesome."
Captain America: Brave New World is now streaming on Disney+.