Included in the THR report announcing Jeremy Renner as the newest cast member of Denis Villeneuve’s STORY OF YOUR LIFE was this little tidbit:
He will shoot Captain America: Civil War this spring, then segue to Story of Your Life in mid-June, working with Villeneuve, considered one of the hottest directors in town and who just booked the sequel to Blade Runner.
If true, CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR is going to be one jam-packed film. The confirmed cast already includes Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Mackie, and Chadwick Boseman in his first appearance as Black Panther. We can most likely add whichever actor they cast as Spider-Man to that list as it seems very likely the web-slinger will be putting on an appearance as well.
Jeremy Renner almost had a cameo in CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER but it ended up not happening due to a conflict in Renner’s schedule. During a discussion with Screenrant last year co-director Joe Russo filled everyone in on what could have been:
What it was going to be, we were trying to complicate the relationship between Cap and his S.H.I.E.L.D agent friends. If Hawkeye got a call from S.H.I.E.L.D saying Captain America is a fugitive, would he listen to that call or not listen to that call? That sequence actually was heartbreaking for us to cut it. I think it ultimately might have been a conflict with Renner’s schedule. But there was a great sequence where Hawkeye was chasing Cap through Washington D.C. there was an awesome sequence where they confronted each other in a ravine on the outskirts of D.C. and Hawkeye was shooting a series of arrows closing in on Cap, Cap closing in on him. And then Cap took him down and he realized for the first time that Hawkeye was trying to trick S.H.I.E.L.D, where he whispered something into Cap’s ear that Cap had a tracker on his suit and to punch Hawkeye to make it look real, because there was a Quinjet hovering above where they were watching the feedback back at S.H.I.E.L.D.
So it was a cool sequence. But look, there’s a million iterations of films, and especially when dealing with Marvel movies where characters can come in or come out during the creative process. And you keep working and working like a Rubik’s Cube till you find the right configuration where everything lines up. So even though we lost that sequence, I think we may have streamlined the movie and made it a little bit more propulsive.
What does everyone think of this development? Is the cast growing too large or do you welcome another big ensemble flick?