Feige Hated First Captain America 3 Pitch, But That's How We Got Civil War
The third installment of the Captain America franchise could have gone in an entirely different direction.
It turns out that Captain America: Civil War only happened because Kevin Feige insisted on it after he was unhappy with the initial pitch for the third film.
Marvel producer Nate Moore revealed how Civil War came to be on The Town with Matthew Belloni podcast, saying that the original idea was to go for the Madbomb arc.
In the Marvel comics, the Madbomb is a device that makes people go crazy and attack each other when affected by it - "a little similar to what I think they did in Kingsman, " as Moore himself put it. The plan was to set the story around the device and make Zemo the main villain, a sort of Captain America classic.
However, Kevin Feige was not having it.
"And it was cool, and it was grounded, and it was political, and whatever, and [Feige] was like, 'That's not a big enough idea, guys'," Moore said.
Even after receiving a draft, the president of Marvel Studios was not convinced; eventually, Feige gathered the creative team and told them, "Stop with the Madbomb, you guys are doing Civil War."
Feige's point was pretty clear, as he felt that the Madbomb arc was not exciting enough for fans to get hooked. According to Moore, the head of Marvel Studios ended up being right.
"He was right. We were still able to pay off the Bucky storyline. We still figured out how to use Zemo. But the central conceit of the movie was something that audiences would gravitate towards and they did," Moore said, referring to the final outcome that pitted Captain America against Iron Man.
Fans also agree with Feige, saying that Endgame would never have worked the way it did if the Avengers were not divided in Captain America: Civil War. However, some people feel that the Madbomb arc should not necessarily have been dropped.
"I still think [Civil War] would have worked as an Avengers movie, and Cap 3 could have still been the Madbomb plot. But then I'm in that group that wanted more Cap and Bucky, which we got robbed of when one got dusted and the other buggered off days after he returned. I dunno. I just look back at Steve and Bucky's arc and feel... unsatisfied," Redditor njf85 noted.
Captain America: Civil War premiered in 2016, becoming a bombshell hit that also left the fandom in controversy. People were predictably divided into Team Iron Man and Team Cap, and many fans could not get over the confrontation, even as Avengers seemingly put it behind them and reunited to fight Thanos in the Infinity Saga.