Chris Evans may have hung up the super-suit, but Captain America is coming back — and it’s someone audiences know and love.
Captain America: Brave New World features Marvel staple Anthony Mackie reprising his role as Sam Wilson and his superhero alter ego, the Falcon. However, now, Wilson has a new role to helm: Captain America.
The trailer for the fourth Captain America movie was released in July 2024, showing Wilson taking on the mantle and carrying the legendary shield. The snippets teased some strife between Wilson and the recast Thaddeus Ross, as the new Captain America weighs working with the U.S. government again after previously siding with Steve Rogers against them.
"After meeting with newly elected U.S. President Thaddeus Ross, played by Harrison Ford in his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut, Sam finds himself in the middle of an international incident," per the synopsis from Marvel Studios. "He must discover the reason behind a nefarious global plot before the true mastermind has the entire world seeing red."
From who is starring in the movie to when it will be released, here’s everything to know about Captain America: Brave New World.
Captain America: Brave New World will be released in theaters on Feb. 14, 2025. The movie was originally scheduled to be released on the big screen on July 26, 2024, however, after the SAG-AFTRA strike in 2023, Disney announced they would be delaying their onslaught of Marvel movies.
Deadpool & Wolverine moved into Captain America’s July slot from May 2024 while the Mackie-led movie was pushed seven months into the spot originally occupied by Mahershala Ali’s Blade, which will now come out later in 2025.
Mackie leads the cast as Sam Wilson, or the new Captain America. Ford replaces the late William Hurt, who died in 2022, as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, who has just been named the U.S. President. Previously, Ross was on opposing sides of Captain America and Falcon as he wanted to put a leash on superheroes’ powers to work in alliance with the U.S. government in the Sokovia Accords.
Ford is also believed to potentially play the Red Hulk, who is introduced in the Marvel comics and is teased at the very end of the trailer for the movie.
“Harrison was the f---ing man, dude,” Mackie told TheWrap in an interview in August 2023 about his costar. “It’s funny, he shows up and everybody is kind of, you know, you don’t know what to do with Harrison Ford. Like, ‘Somebody get Harrison water,’ but he wasn’t that at all.”
He added, “For him to be in this profession for so many years and to see him at 80 excited to be a part of this universe was really dope and it put things in perspective how lucky we are, how lucky I am to be a part of it and bring these characters to life.”
Also joining the cast are Breaking Bad’s Giancarlo Esposito, Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Xosha Roquemore, Carl Lumbly, Liv Tyler and Tim Blake Nelson. Esposito seems to be an assassin of sorts, as he’s featured in the trailer shooting with a gun, while Ramirez will be playing the new Falcon.
Captain America: Brave New World picks up where 2021’s
>The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
Now, Wilson is faced with the choice of working with the U.S. government and military again and protecting the president while finding his own identity as the renowned superhero. The trailer showed images of a wrecked Washington D.C. and a lab — which is never a good sign in Marvel.
Wilson has to fight The Leader, played by Nelson, an evil mastermind originated by Stan Lee in the comics.
Previously, Wilson worked with Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes, also known as the Winter Soldier, to continue fighting Hydra’s brainwashing experiment to create super soldiers in labs.
A trailer for Captain America: Brave New World was released on July 12, showing some familiar faces. The teaser showed chaos ensuing as Wilson is tasked with dealing with an international incident.
In one bit, Ford reminds Wilson that he “may be Captain America,” but he’s “not Steve Rogers.”
“You’re right, I’m not,” Wilson replies.
The movie is directed by Julius Onah, who is new to the Marvel universe. His previous work includes 2015’s The Girl Is In Trouble and 2018’s The Cloverfield Paradox.
“This is a movie like the previous Captain America movies that bleed into the tradition of this genre and what’s so great in this film is Sam Wilson has an incredible adversary in The Leader…whose always one, two, three steps ahead,” Onah told Screen Rant at the Disney 2023 Expo in September 2022. “I think as audiences watch this film they’ll never be able to see what’s coming around the corner.”
Filming began for the movie in March 2023 in Atlanta before wrapping up in June 2023 in Washington D.C. Much of the plot centers around the president and the trailer features a destroyed and battered D.C., with a shot of the White House getting blown up.
Mackie has described how coming back to work on the fourth Captain America — after being introduced 10 years ago in the second, Captain America: The Winter Soldier — has been a full circle moment for him.
“One of my first Marvel scenes was me sitting at a table talking to the senator and me and Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson kidnapping him and we go back and we stay at the same hotel and we shot at that same area,” he told TheWrap. “So in that regard, it was really emotional to think how far my character has come and where he is now after the 10 years that I’ve been in the MCU.”
He added that shooting Marvel movies was like “summer camp” since he had the chance to reunite with people he’d been working with for a decade.
“You go to set and there’s people that you’ve known for 10, 12 years now that you’ve worked with and got to know and people have kids and people get divorced and people buy homes. So it’s like going back to see your old friends. So it was really easy,” Mackie said.
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