'Captain America: Civil War' Is a 'Psychological Thriller' But Funny and... Romantic?
"Captain America: Civil War" is not meant to be a romantic comedy or anything, but directors Anthony Russo and Joe Russo told Collider the movie will be "funnier than Winter Soldier," and they told Comicbook.com Cap (Chris Evans) may finally get some lovin' (but probably not with Tony or Bucky).
Throw Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark into anything and it instantly becomes funnier (and better) than it would be without him, but we know "Civil War" will also have the tension of Iron Man vs. Captain America, and the directors said they consider the 2016 Marvel movie to be a "psychological thriller."
The Russo brothers shared updates on "Civil War" and the two-part "Avengers: Infinity War" movies after Collider's IMAX screening of "Winter Soldier." Here's a portion of their comments comparing the third "Captain America" film to the second one:
"Of course, Winter Soldier was a political thriller. We think of Civil War as a psychological thriller. It's a complicated movie. And yes, it divides these people that you've known to not only be a team, but Cap and Natasha, in this movie, they're evolving into a surrogate family for each other. So, it's a closer group of people that's being divided. That's a difficult thing to do."
"There's a good portion of [Civil War] that's actually funnier than Winter Soldier, because there are characters in that film, that come from worlds where the tone is more comedic. Not all the characters in that movie have the same history as the Avengers. They're coming at the problem of the film, not embedded with that baggage."
"They're not tied to the central arc of the movie with the same motivation as the other characters, so they can be lighter. I think there are a lot lighter moments because there are much darker moments as well. We did have to work very hard at that."
So there's a tonal balance of light and dark, with a solid chunk of comedy.
Speaking of light, for those wondering about Cap's romantic life, Comicbook.com asked the Russos about potential romantic interests in "Civil War." Here are the responses:
Anthony Russo quipped, "You mean, aside from Cap [and] Bucky?" Joe Russo added, "That falls under the surprise in the story as well, but we can only keep Cap romantically uninvolved for so long. At some point, something has to happen with that character, so we are very aware of his lack of romantic life. We want to keep dimensionalizing his character so maybe something interesting will happen."
We'll see the results when "Civil War" comes out on May 6.
Let's jump ahead to "Avengers: Infinity War." The Russos are in pre-production on those 2018 and 2019 films, and clarified some previous comments about the huge number of characters that will be in that Marvel extravaganza. Here's part of what they told Collider:
"We were being figurative when we said [67 characters] and people took it as literal but there's a lot of characters. Infinity War is meant to be the culmination of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe up to that point. It's very ambitious in its scope, it wants to take everything that you've seen before and coalesce into some kinda of climactic ending. It's complicated , ambitious storytelling...We're not talking about lead characters, just people that make an appearance."
"We start shooting both of them later this year in November and we're primarily going to be based in Atlanta again. That's where we'll do out stage work and some exteriors. There will be locations from around the world involved as well. We actually relocate to Atlanta in late July to finish up pre-production there. We don't come back to L.A. until the following June."
Whew. That sounds pretty exhausting, but these guys know what they're doing by now. One film at a time, though, and the promotion for "Civil War" is really just getting started. Expect to see the full "Avengers" lineup promoting the heck out of this "funnier" but still psychologically deep new movie in the next few months.
Want more stuff like this? Like us on Facebook.