No wonder Captain America and his allies look so hot under the collar.
During the filming of the epic throwdown in “Captain America: Civil
War,” actor Chris Evans’ team had to battle more than their former
Avengers teammates.
Captain America’s squad also had to grapple with temperatures upwards
of 100 degrees radiating off the tarmac on the film’s airport set during
August in Fayetteville, Ga. — while their counterparts on Iron Man’s
forces could retreat to air-conditioned trailers.
Curse you, Robert Downey!
“For the most part when you had that big splash panel scene where all
the heroes were running at each other, a lot of Downey’s team’s costumes
were all CGI,” says Evans. “On my team however, you had Lizzy (Olsen,
aka Scarlet Witch) in her red leather jacket and you had Sebastian Stan
(as Bucky) in his giant silver arm, Anthony (Mackie as The Falcon), Paul
Rudd (as Ant-Man) and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, all covered head to toe
in their full, heavy combat gear.
“Everyone was just dripping sweat, it was so humid and disgusting. Our bodies just became sweaty swamps.”
Of course, the heroes have a much deeper quarrel in Marvel Studio’s
latest epic opening late Thursday — a thinly veiled metaphor for the
debate between civil liberties and national security.
“Our intent was that when you left the theater that you would argue
about who was wrong and who was right,” says co-director Joe Russo.
Based on the popular 2007 “Civil War” comic book miniseries, the flick
centers on a major schism in the superhero community over the push from
governments around the world for official oversight of the Avengers.
Downey’s Tony Stark, feeling guilt over his role in the devastation
unleashed in last year’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” rallies Black Widow
(Scarlett Johansson), War Machine (Don Cheadle), Vision (Paul Bettany)
and newcomer Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) to his cause.
As if Captain America wasn’t reluctant enough to cede control, he’s
forced to go on the run when his childhood pal Bucky is framed for mass
murder and the Avengers are sent to bring him in ... dead or alive.
Marvel spent eight years building its shared cinematic universe and
proceeds to rip it apart over the course of the movie’s 2½-hour running
time.
“I think the predictable thing just to say the heroes are arguing but
in the third act a greater villain comes along that makes them realize
that they were wrong and team up to fight that other bad guy,” says
Steven McFeely, who co-wrote “Civil War” with Christopher Markus. “But
we wanted to take that genre (staple) away and have the third act be
even more intense.”
But didn’t fans just sit through a similar premise with last month’s
“Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice,” arch-rival Warner Bros’ answer to
Marvel’s successful shared cinematic universe model?
“It's always been crowded at the multiplex,” says Marvel Studios head
Kevin Feige. “When we were working on Marvel’s first standalone movie
(in 2008), ‘Iron Man,’ our whole future of our studio and our grand
plans rested on that film.
“And we were competing with among other things, the first ‘Indiana Jones’ movie in 20-plus years.
“Certainly, you’re always nervous about other projects and what else is
going to be in the theaters around you, but we continue to do what we
did then, which is keep our head down and continue to work on our own
movies.”
Then there’s the added drama of a certain web-crawling addition to the
Marvel Universe — a rebooted Spider-Man on loan from Sony, which
maintains rights to standalone movies for the hero.
The latest actor to don the Spandex, Tom Holland, wasn’t even cast until cameras were already rolling on “Civil War.”
“You could just tell he was the best guy for the job,” Evans says of Holland.
The Marvel veteran should know, he had to screen test with all the
finalists, to get a Spidey in place in the nick of time for the big
airport fight sequence.
“We tried not to be too dependent on Spider-Man one way or another,”
says McFeely. “We weren’t sure if he was in or out, but we would hear
from Feige, ‘Well negotiations are still going, so we may not get him.”
What they ended up getting is a timely parable for a country that’s
divided on weightier issues than picking between #TeamCap and
#TeamIronMan.
So how would Captain America having to choose a side in a less
fantastical world populated by likes of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders,
Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.
“Oooh, I’m not touching that one,” laughs Evans.
There are some entanglements even a super hero avoids.
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