Plus special look at Thunderbolts*, in which Florence Pugh returns as government assassin Yelena Belova.
Captain America: Brave New World is star Anthony Mackie’s first cinematic appearance as the new Captain America.
Marvel Studios dropped a full-length trailer for Captain America: Brave New World at the first ever Brazil D23 fan event this weekend. This is star Anthony Mackie’s first cinematic appearance as the new Captain America after the Phase Four 2021 TV miniseries, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. The event also featured a special look at Marvel’s forthcoming Thunderbolts* film, followed by a new trailer.
As previously reported, it’s the fifth film in the MCU’s Phase Five, directed by Julius Onah (The Cloverfield Paradox) and building on events not just in F&WS but also the 2008 film The Incredible Hulk. Per the official premise:
After meeting with newly elected US President Thaddeus Ross, played by Harrison Ford in his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut, Sam finds himself in the middle of an international incident. He must discover the reason behind a nefarious global plot before the true mastermind has the entire world seeing red.
In addition to Mackie and Ford, the cast includes Liv Tyler as the president’s daughter, Betty Ross, and Tim Blake Nelson as Samuel Sterns, both reprising their roles in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. (Ford replaces the late William Hurt, who played Ross in that earlier film.) Carl Lumbley plays Isaiah Bradley, reprising his F&WS role as a Korean War veteran who had been secretly imprisoned and given the Super Soldier Serum against his will, enduring 30 years of experimentation. (He told Sam he couldn’t imagine how any black man could take up Captain America’s shield because of what it represented to people like him, and one could hardly blame him.)
Rosa Salazar plays Rachel Leighton, Danny Ramirez plays Joaquin Torres, and Shira Haas plays Ruth Bat-Seraph. Giancarlo Esposito will also appear as Sidewinder, the alter ego of economics professor Seth Voelker, who gains the power of teleportation via a cloak (a gift from the Egyptian god Set) and forms a criminal organization called The Serpent Society in the comics.
The first teaser dropped in July, featuring a final shot that introduced Red Hulk, the alter ego of Thaddeus Ross. There was also an exclusive clip featured at San Diego Comic-Con that same month, focused on a White House event held by Ross introducing a stockpile of adamantium, the result of a “celestial mass” emerging in the Indian Ocean and now the most valuable element on the planet.
The new trailer opens with Sam/Captain America visiting Isaiah in prison; Isaiah doesn’t remember what he’s supposed to have done, but the trailer shows us his involvement in an attempted assassination of President Ross. “Whatever this is, Cap, be careful,” Isaiah tells Sam. We learn there were five shooters in a coordinated terrorist attack. Sam is determined to get to the bottom of things to fend off the breakout of a war. But the rabbit hole looks like it might run pretty deep when Sam gets a phone call asking, “Do you ever wonder who’s playing who?” Someone else is pulling the strings and Sam looks like he’ll be framed at some point as well. The trailer ends with Ross’s full transformation into Red Hulk and a head-to-head battle with Sam.
“We are the Thunderbolts!”
As previously reported, Thunderbolts* is a follow-up of sorts to 2021’s Black Widow. It’s directed by Jake Schreier and stars Wyatt Russell as US Agent/failed Captain America from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Contessa Valentina Allegra, Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier, David Harbour as Alexei/Red Guardian, Hannah John-Kamen as Ava Starr/Ghost, Olga Kurylenko as Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster, and Lewis Pullman as Bob/The Sentry.
An extended teaser dropped during SDCC this summer showing Yelena reuniting with Alexei, both pretty much wallowing in depression. Along with Bucky and US Agent, they were recruited by Valentina for her own warped version of the Avengers.
The new sneak peek shows our plucky band of misfits in Alexei’s big limo with a military convoy in pursuit. Yelena fires at the convoy, but the humvees unexpectedly explode. Bucky rides through the smoldering ruins on a motorcycle, prompting Alexei to fanboy a little (“that guy’s so cool”). He is less thrilled when Bucky opens fire on them.
Cut to the new trailer, in which the gang—now with Bucky in tow— walk into the old Avengers tower and find Valentina waiting for them. Yep, she purchased it. “How crazy is it to think of all the monumental fights that happened exactly here where you’re standing?” she says. “I mean, the place wasn’t cheap but it’s good optics.” The rest of the trailer takes some time to introduce our central characters and their respective skill sets. There’s a lot of humor and plenty of action—classic Marvel fare. And it seems Alexei is the one who comes up with the name Thunderbolts. The whole antihero thing seems to be working for Marvel thus far given the box office success of Deadpool and Wolverine. Perhaps the PG-13 version will continue that trend.
Captain America: Brave New World hits theaters on February 14, 2025. Thunderbolts* is slated for a May 2, 2025 release and will conclude the MCU’s Phase Five.
Credit:
Marvel Studios
Jennifer is a senior reporter at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban.
