It’s always a treat to meet the creative minds that produce films and television. Thanks to Disney I attended the #CaptainAmericaEvent however all opinions expressed are my very own. The build up to the theatrical premiere of Captain America: Civil War is coming to an end tomorrow and I have to say that the excitement is amazing!! We had the opportunity to speak with Joe and Anthony Russo and the talked about creating and collaborating together for Captain America Civil War. Yes, we got to pick their brains, it was awesome!
Photo Credit: PostcardsandLovebugs.com
#TeamCap or #TeamIronman
They really set up the divide for the movie. All over social media people are claiming their side and we totally played into what they wanted, Anthony explained:
“That was the intent with the film was to hopefully when you’re done watching a movie you leave the theater and you argue with your family and friends about which side. We didn’t want to make a declarative statement one way or the other. We just want to represent both as accurately and emotionally as we could. Yes. It’s more fun that way. It’s not, it’s not the kind of story that the directors need to be too firm with their point of view and because I think it would close off the opportunity to have a conversation after the movie.”
And I promise you will totally have that conversation!
Working together you’d think that there would be a divide but the Russo brothers explain how they were able to give each character it’s own build up and integrity for the story line with Captain America and Ironman:
“No, I don’t think there was rivalry just because we both love both characters. You know, like our process has always been, we like very layered storytelling so we often times when we’re breaking the story or prepping a movie we’ll sort of step through the story from different characters points of view. We’ll take a pass where it’ll just be all about this character. And then we’ll take a pass where it’ll be all about that character. We work with ensembles a lot in our work. And so it’s become part of our process to really have moments where the whole movie belongs to somebody else, just one particular character for a moment as we’re thinking about the film from beginning to end.
So, I think that’s the process we went through on this movie as well with the writers, Markus and McFeely and the producer, Nate Moore from Marvel and Kevin Feige. So it was very much I think –, look, they’re both very near and dear to our hearts. We love them both. And we both –. Look, we wanted like the other thing I think about Joe and I is that we love characters who are exciting and fun and cool at all that but also are very human and vulnerable. We always look for that side of the character. So for us it was very important to find where’s Steve Rogers vulnerable? Where is Tony Stark vulnerable? And sort of play to those in this movie in a way that would put them in conflict with one another.”
Photo Credit: Zade Rosenthal Marvel
Is Your Spidey-sense Tingling?
If you’ve not seen the trailer skip over this section. But if you have you know there’s a young super hero in tights that joins TeamIronman. Joe and Anthony were very excited to talk about the addition of Tom Holland as Spider-man to Civil War:
“Oh my God. Doing everything we can to hang onto him. Yeah. We’re more in love with him than anybody.” Anthony exclaimed.
Joe added, “There was a really exhaustive audition process for that role. And you know we saw him for the first time in our office in Atlanta, it was Anthony and I. We were doing work sessions with all the actors. And he came in and –, you know Spiderman was a very important character to me as a kid. I was a big comic book collector. I still have my collection in my closet to my wife’s dismay. And you know, that character was my favorite character growing up. So to be able to interpret him on screen was like a dream come true. The things that I loved about him as a character when I was a kid were his vulnerability, his insecurity, his sense of humor. But I loved that his sense of humor in the books was a very self-aware you know. He was a smart ass kid but he was a kid. And we felt that you know, our interpretation of the character, we wanted to have an actor very close in age to Peter Parker. And Tom’s a young actor. And we also wanted to make sure that the actor had both the vulnerability and a confidence at the same time. It made him accessible. But also would allow him to stand in contrast to all these other really experienced superheroes who are running around dealing with a very adult problem. And then you insert into that a kid who’s trying to improvise his way through the situation but doesn’t really understand the stakes and couldn’t understand the stakes because he’s a kid. And Tom Holland just embodied all of that. He brought a real authenticity. That was the other thing too is that we really wanted him to feel like he was of New York today, right now and not about comic book New York.
He was a kid living in Queens who had a certain energy to him and a certain you know, a certain –, that feeling that you get or that the shift in your personality that happens when you do live in New York City. You know and that, so that was everything we were looking for and he, the kid just embodied it so well.”
Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War
Spider-Man/Peter Parker (Tom Holland)
Photo Credit: Film Frame
© Marvel 2016
Photo Credit: PostcardsandLovebugs.com
Not Your Basic Comic book Story Line
One of the things a lot of the bloggers talked about after the screening was how different the movie was from the storyline in the comic book. I thought this was such a great question and it was totally asked, here’s how they answered:
“Well, as comic book fans ourselves and I was a huge comic book fan, I don’t have a lot of interest and I’m the first guy to line up to see the midnight showing of a movie I’m excited about. And I’ll drag my son out with me and sit there till 2:30 in the morning and watch the film just because I want to have that immediate response to the movie the same way that everybody does want to be part of the cultural conversation about that movie. As a diehard comic book fan I’m not interested in seeing a straight interpretation of a comic book.
I already know the story. So why would I go see the movie? You know in the Marvel cinematic universe is also building its characters in a very specific way that is very different than a comic books. Film is a very different medium then comic books. You know, we have two hours, 2 ½ hours to tell a story in. And we can only put out one of those movies you know once a year, every two years to move these characters forward. So we have to make choices that are servicing the storytelling that is built up in the Marvel cinematic universe.
And so Civil War in the Marvel cinematic universe is very different than Civil War in the comic books. We don’t have the same characters, we don’t have the same storytelling. You know, and so for us, we borrowed the concept and applied it to our characters. But we also needed what we felt was a very emotional reason that would drive the story on both sides because again we were really committed to making sure that when he got to the end he had a very difficult time deciding who was right.”
Well played right?! If you really think about it would you want to see the same story? I think they are doing their version of the story very well and omg you get to see it tomorrow!!
Check out this video I found on YouTube of an interview with Joe and Anthony Russo on the FilmIsNow Movie Bloopers & Extras channel.
Love sharing the other interview perspectives.
FOLLOW THE BUZZ ON SOCIAL MEDIA!
LIKE CAPTAIN AMERICA ON FACEBOOK
FOLLOW CAPTAIN AMERICA ON TWITTER
FOLLOW MARVEL ON INSTAGRAM
VISIT THE OFFICIAL CAPTAIN AMERICA WEBSITE
Check out our group photo with Joe and Anthony Russo!
Photo Credit: PostcardsandLovebugs.com
