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Captain America: The Winter Soldier directors Joe and Anthony Russo are allowing themselves a victory lap. It won’t last long. Soon, the siblings will have to plunge head first into pre-production on Captain America 3, as the sequel is due to hit theaters in May 2016. But before that, the brothers hopped on the phone with us to celebrate The Winter Soldier now that it’s reaching Blu-ray and DVD.
With good reason. The second Cap film continued Marvel’s white-hot streak of quality entertainment. And it banked enough cash ($259.7M) to become the highest-grossing domestic feature of 2014… a distinction it’s likely to relent to Marvel’s own Guardians of the Galaxy. Needless to say, we had a lot to talk about with the Russos, from Captain America: The Winter Soldier to Marvel’s plans for Captain America 3 and beyond.
They know the title of Captain America 3, and will tell us what it is very soon.But not during my interview. Which is frustrating. Understandable. But still, beyond frustrating. The title came up in conversation because we were discussing the ways the directors used Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. She isn’t a sidekick. She’s an integral character, carrying over from The Avengers and establishing herself in Cap’s world. We talked about plans to have Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye in The Winter Soldier, and their desire to have more heroes in Cap 3.
"I think when people learn the title of Cap 3, they’ll understand that Marvel is continuing to take really big swings," Joe Russo told me. "[That title] is coming soon. Shortly. Very, very soon."The success of Guardians should allow Cap 3 to get a little strange.Captain America: The Winter Soldier earned several raves for its ability to stay grounded, to mirror the socio-political dramas of the 1970s. But the smash-hit success of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy proved to Marvel that the audience is willing to stretch its audience and go along for the ride, where a talking raccoon fires machine guns and one hero looks like a tree. Will that free up Joe and Anthony Russo to get weird with Captain America 3?
"We still think of Cap… what makes him special, in the Marvel universe, is that he lends himself to that grounding," Anthony Russo told us. "At least compared to the other characters who have come down through the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So there is a special quality – Cap shines brightest in that tone. At the same time,
the success of the brand certainly allows us to make more experiments and to try certain things. Even if we are staying true to that tone. So right now, we’re trying to keep pushing the boundaries of what we are able to do with the narrative and the style, to see where people will go with us."
"More than anything," Joe continued,
"the success of Guardians taught us that we can take more chances. We can be riskier."The Russos know what’s happening in Marvel’s Phase 3.Basically. I asked them if, when they signed on to Captain America 3, Marvel grants them access to screenplays for Joss Whedon’s The Avengers: Age of Ultron and Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man so they can keep up with continuity as they plan. Joe Russo said Marvel President Kevin Feige is "great about sharing" the studio’s plans for future adventures. The brothers said they spent time in London on Whedon’s Age of Ultron set, and the key Marvel players email each other ideas all of the time. Joe Russo explained: "Everything is interconnected. We’re all friends, and we’re all geeks. We love to share ideas and inspire each other. And Kevin [Feige] is great about making sure all of us are up to speed on the current drafts of future stuff. Especially if it’s a character who you are working with, or something that you might be doing."
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Collider also recently sat down with the Russo brothers in anticipation of the release of The Winter Soldier on Blu-ray, and during the course of their conversation the duo also talked fairly extensively about Captain America 3.
In addition to revealing that filming on Cap 3 begins in April in Atlanta, the Russo brothers also discussed how much of sequel’s story was dictated by Marvel beforehand, revealing that Kevin Feige offered up a concept that’s been in his head for a long time.
They also talked about the script’s evolution since February, Hawkeye’s involvement, when they’ll announce the title, delving further into the Winter Soldier character, envisioning the sequels as a two-part story, the return of Frank Grillo‘s Crossbones, and more.Collider: You guys have a release date. Have you already figured out when you’re shooting? JOE RUSSO: We shoot in the spring, April I believe. We’ll be in Atlanta.
The last one shot in Cleveland and I know they’re shooting Ant-Man in Atlanta, so is it an all-Atlanta shoot?ANTHONY RUSSO: No it’s not an all-Atlanta shoot, it’s a lot of stage work in Atlanta. There’s other locations that are also involved that I don’t think we can get into.
JOE RUSSO: Typically you go to Atlanta, you do your stage work, and then move on to locations after that. So there’s various locations.
Where are you in the scripting process for the movie? ANTHONY RUSSO: We started meeting with [screenwriters] Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely and Nate Moore, the producer on the movie, back in February. So we’ve been sort of through a very lengthy process of exploring what the movie can be with them, and Markus and McFeely just turned in their first draft last week, an excellent first draft.
JOE RUSSO: Great first draft. Those guys are really talented.
From when you started meeting in February to your first draft, did a lot change along the way?JOE RUSSO: Absolutely. It went through many iterations. And that’s part of the process and what we like, is that you stretch and pull and kick it every which way you can and then the best ideas usually end up floating to the surface. So we did many iterations of what Cap 3 could be, and I think we finally settled on the strongest concept, which also is something that’s been in Kevin [Feige’s] head for a while.
ANTHONY RUSSO: That’s a big part of our process is sort of the experimentation during the development and prep period. We do it at a script level and we also do it at a visual and development level. We do very elaborate storyboarding and animatics, which are sort of animated sequences of what the movie would be. We sort of go through a process of just making the movie over and over again before we actually make the movie, and it’s a way for us to figure out what we want the movie to be—exactly what we want the movie to be.
The other day Jeremy Renner said that he might be part of Cap 3. He is a very busy guy. He has many franchises going right now. When you’re scripting a movie like this, how challenging is it to be writing for a character when all of these scheduling issues get in the way?JOE RUSSO: I was gonna say Renner might be misremembering because he was supposed to be in Cap 2 but we couldn’t make his schedule work [laughs]. Maybe that’s what he’s talking about. It’s certainly difficult. Everyone involved in these films are all movie stars, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that they’re in Marvel movies, so all of their schedules are booked up. It does become very complicated.
ANTHONY RUSSO: On a creative level it does become very important to sort that out as early as possible. Depending on who you include in a movie it changes the movie radically. Obviously we have to sort those issues out early so we have time to wrap our brain around that version of it.
JOE RUSSO: There were iterations of Cap 2 that had Hawkeye and Widow in it, there was an iteration that had just Widow in it and there was an iteration that had nobody in it. You explore all of those iterations until you settle on what you think is the most potent or most powerful. And sometimes scheduling issues assist in that decision making process.
When do you guys think you will be announcing the title? ANTHONY RUSSO: It’s hard to say.
JOE RUSSO: Right now [laughs].
ANTHONY RUSSO: Don’t do it!
JOE RUSSO: Captain America: CapWolf
But being serious, has Marvel said if they’re saving it for the next Comic-Con?JOE RUSSO: Hopefully before we start shooting.
ANTHONY RUSSO: It will be soon. Look, sometimes the announcement waits on certain business deals to be completed so we’re just kind of waiting on the business end of the issue to sort of settle itself and we’ll be ready to announce it. But we’re hoping in a month or so at the most.
Obviously people loved Sebastian Stan as Winter Solider. I mean, I know a lot of people loved his work in it. It’s a no brainer that he’s coming back. Can you comment if he’ll have a bigger part?JOE RUSSO: We’ve called it a two-parter. Certainly it’s a cliffhanger. I know some people didn’t like the fact that he didn’t have a lot of lines and that we didn’t explore more of his personality in that film. That wasn’t the point of that movie. The point of that movie was that, you know, a ghost from Cap’s past comes back and punches him in the face and how does he deal with that issue while he’s also trying to figure out how to save the world. So that character in that movie had the really specific job of basically, you know, being a killing machine and could Cap crack the veneer of that well formed Hydra killing machine? So what’s left to explore obviously is the personality of the character, much the way that Brubaker’s run did after Winter Solider regained a semblance of his past. Philosophical questions that we would want to deal with in Cap 2 would be, you know, is he redeemable? Is he the worst assassin we’ve ever seen or is he the longest suffering POW? Where does he live now? Does he ever regain his memories?
ANTHONY RUSSO: He’s a beautifully tragic character.
JOE RUSSO: If he doesn’t regain his memories, can you call him Bucky Barnes or is he somebody new? So it’s a really fascinating character to play with. Very rich. I remember when we met with Kevin and we found out they were doing a Winter Solider storyline, I said, ‘You’ve got a Star Wars on your hands because that’s such a rich, familial conflict with a hero and a villain who are basically brothers,’ and such a complex villain. And when I say the hero’s only as good as the villain, Bucky’s so rich and so complex that he makes Cap more interesting.
Chris Evans has, I believe, two more pictures on his contract. He has Cap 3 and Avengers 3. Winter Solider/Bucky Barnes is a character that could step in for Captain America. He has the power, he can wield the shield. How much is that sort of playing into maybe setting up, what if Chris doesn’t want to come back and do more Marvel movies? Or is that something you can’t even think about when doing Cap 3?ANTHONY RUSSO: You know, to be honest with you, it’s just – even though there’s sort of a grand plan of things, Kevin Feige also has this awesome attitude of one movie at a time, which I think is very healthy, not to get too far ahead of yourself. And I think even though we can see in the distant horizon some contracts coming to an end and whatnot, and sort of wondering about what happens, I think the truth is, we’re not close enough to it to really be addressing it on a narrative level yet.
JOE RUSSO: When Bucky takes over the mantle at the end of Cap 3 – [turns to Anthony] did I just … [Laughs]
JOE RUSSO: Did I just say that? I meant to say Falcon. Falcon takes over the mantle at the end of Cap 3. It’s a process that, you know, you have to tell the best story that you can now and the contract issue’s not necessarily something that we’re worried all that much about.
ANTHONY RUSSO: All we know is we get Chris Evans for this movie.
A lot of people are very excited about seeing Crossbones, Frank Grillo. He kicked so much ass in The Purge: Anarchy. Can you tease people about Crossbones? JOE RUSSO: That’s a tough one. I mean, listen, we didn’t – he’s not alive at the end of Winter Solider for no reason, so let’s just say that. But, you know, strict Marvel policy of nondisclosure.
Yeah, as I said, I like to push as far as I can, but I mean, Frank is an awesome actor …
ANTHONY RUSSO: We love him, yeah.
… and I’m sure he will be a kickass villain in the film. For the shooting schedule, is it the same as Winter Solider? Are you gonna have a little more time? ANTHONY RUSSO: Probably a little longer. You know, again, we’re not at that level of detail yet.
JOE RUSSO: At least the same if not a little bit longer.
Hopefully success breeds an extra five to ten days.ANTHONY RUSSO: [Laughs] Yeah, you would think!
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