With a new TV spot featuring Spider-Man dropping earlier today, the thrill for Captain America: Civil War is at an all-time high. However, directors Joe and Anthony Russo maintain that there are some dark, heavy emotional moments ahead in their Winter Soldier sequel, really focusing Steve Rogers' transformation from hero to fugitive.
"We're going to have to do something unexpected," said Joe Russo. "We're going to have to play with the audience's expectations. We're going to have to be radical with the tone, which is why it's so diverse in tone. When we sat down to start crafting story, we went, 'It's going to be a very heavy movie,' because we wanted to take Cap on a journey through all three films, and it's a radical journey… it moves him the farthest away from where he started, to go from a patriot to an insurgent. We knew we were taking a big risk by taking these very popular characters, and putting them in a very emotionally wrought, horrific… it goes full-on horror."
One of the biggest concerns about the Russos initially was their background as comedy writers and directors, having been known for their work on Arrested Development and Community, most notably. Joe Russo maintains that this work was pretty essential in crafting their stories. "It's like we were made in a Marvel machine," said Joe. "The reason the [Marvel movies] work is because you're hybriding genre… that's all 'Community' is; we're hybriding genre. We're making fun of genre, we're deconstructing genre." Joe went on to explain that it was their work on Community's paintball episodes that showed Kevin Feige that they could balance action as well as comedy.
Captain America: Civil War releases May 6th, 2016.
About The Author:
Matt is a graduate of the Ryerson University School of Journalism, and has been a fan of superheroes since he picked up his first comic book issue as a child. While he works as a professional musician, Matt has a massive passion for comic books, films and heroes, along with participating in discussion and debate with the CBM community.