Possible title for Avengers 4: War for the Shield. If Chris Evans’ Captain America were to somehow not make it through Avengers: Infinity War alive, then we may see a debate/battle break out over his replacement. Smart money is on Sebastian Stan’s Bucky or Anthony Mackie’s Falcon, since both characters carried the shield in the comics.
Unfortunately, you can’t get either Stan or Mackie to talk about that subject in an interview, but they do talk to Collider about where their characters are when Infinity War begins…
Mackie: We all kind of went on our separate ways after Civil War. We all kind of went on our separate ways and we were in hiding because of everything that happened in Civil War. So now, we get the call to rally, and here we are: Avengers 3.
Stan: Winter Soldier is just enjoying his new arm. And that’s really where he’s at.
The last time we saw Bucky was in Black Panther, having undergone a process to eliminate the extensive brainwashing that turned him into the Winter Soldier. He’ll now get to reunite with his former pal Captain America, and Stan says the reunion went smoothly…
Stan: It went by fast. It felt pretty natural. We weren’t milking the moment or anything. It is what it is. I think the urgency of the circumstance that we find ourselves in kind of makes things go a little bit quicker.
They went on to talk about the huge number of characters and how that makes this experience different from the other Marvel movies they’ve been part of…
Stan: I don’t know. It’s going to be challenging for sure because there’s so many different tones to these films and that all of these characters carry. So I think it’ll be interesting to see how tonally everybody fits into the same world. You’ve shot some already, right?
Mackie: Yeah. The great thing is that tonally, how the movie’s working now everyone—it’s not like you see one person who is the lead of the movie. It’s truly an ensemble movie. I would say if anybody is the lead of the movie it’s Thanos. And it’s all of us working around, orbiting Thanos because he’s such a big bad guy. He’s the uber bad guy. He’s the worst bad guy of all bad guys of all time. So you can’t like put them in three scenes down, then a fight scene at the end. You really have to give them just due. So, our relationship and our scenes are more ensemble-based.
Avengers: Infinity War opens April 27th.