Captain America: Civil War keeps tone of Winter Soldier; Johansson returning

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

For those worried about whether or not they would see Scarlett Johansson take part in the upcoming CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR as Black Widow, be assured that she will be there. During The Television Critics Association Press Tour (don't fall asleep, I promise), writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely sat down for an interview and opened up about the major superhero movie sharing details about Johansson’s involvement, as well as Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) and Howard Stark’s (Dominic Cooper) relationship.

When it comes to telling a story that was written before our MCU, McFeely told IGN:

It’s been on and off the table for a while, let’s put it that way, and it’s a challenge to do it and make sure that all the characters that we’ve established, and everyone’s established in the MCU are serviced and sound correct, right? Because there’s a difference between the characters in Civil War, which was written in 2006, 2007. The MCU doesn’t exist [when it was written]. There isn’t a Robert Downey Jr. or Chris Evans who has helped create the character so we need to make sure that that template gets adjusted and what have you in order to make sure it services these characters and not just sort of rip off their parts and make them look like them.

While many people wondered what shift in tone we might see with Civil War, McFeely says it won’t be anything major:

Every Captain America movie has a genre and Civil War is the musical! No, I think part of the reason for bringing back us and bringing back the [Russo] brothers is because Marvel is very pleased with Winter Soldier aesthetically. I think it’s a really adult movie. It’s very well made and that’s partly the texture of the movie. You can argue it’s the most realistic of the Marvel movies, whatever that is to you. I think it’s fair to say that a Russo brothers movie will stay in that vein.

And what will become of Peggy Carter and Tony Stark’s relationship on screen?

As we have not started shooting, and I’m on my fourth draft of many, that question [of who Peggy was to Tony Stark] has been in and out all over the place so who knows. So many things can shake out but we’ve had conversations and we pitched scenes. Some stay and some don’t. But we saw [Peggy] in Winter Soldier, so we know she’s around.

Directors Joe and Anthony Russo, via an event in Beijing, confirmed Scarlett Johansson’s involvement in the film (from CBM):   

We’ve been preparing for the movie since the last one debuted last year. So, we’ve been working on it for a long time now. We’re very happy how it’s coming along. Captain America 3 is gonna be called Captain America: Civil War and it’s going to star Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson will be back, Winter Soldier [Sebastian Stan] will be back, and Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man will also be joining us in the next film.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR is due in theaters on May 6, 2016.