Captain America: Civil War is one week away for most of us while fans in Europe and Asia are starting to see the film. An opening day gross of $14.9 million dollars is a good sign of things to come from Marvel Studios’ biggest film to date. Predictions are as high as $188 million dollars for Civil War’s domestic opening weekend projections.
I have no information to base this on, but my gut tells me we’re going to see a number over $200 million dollars for the first four days of the film’s release.
This is an event that many thought we would never see on the big screen and casual moviegoers are going to be intrigued by the idea of Captain America and Iron Man duking it out after getting to know them for seven years.
Metal Arms Are Cool
The newest TV spot for Captain America: Civil War has been released and everyone is going gaga over the new footage of everyone’s Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. Tom Holland presents an infectious youthful exuberance, which is anything but normal when fighting the Winter Soldier.
Introducing Baron Zemo
First Appearance Avengers #4, 1964
German actor Daniel Bruhl will bring his talents to Civil War as he will play an altered version of one of Marvel’s deadliest villains. In the comics, the Baron is a high ranking Nazi scientist who serves Hyrda and is a complete fighter in every sense of the word.
In the upcoming film, Bruhl’s Zemo trades in the purple spandex for military garb as a Colonel from Sokovia who lost his family when Ultron raised the country into the sky. He appears to blame the Avengers for the loss of his family and puts plans in motion to get his revenge.
Historically, Zemo is a well-read individual who is always two steps ahead of everyone else.
The same will probably be the case in the movie since Marvel, to an extent, has been hiding him in their promotion of the film.
It will be interesting to see if Zemo is connected to Steve Rogers’ past as he is in the comic or gives the character a menacing clean slate in the
Marvel has received criticism for their lack of compelling villains with Tom Hiddleston’s Loki being the glowing exception.
Daniel Bruhl has the acting chops to pull off a calculating evildoer such as Zemo and chances are he will have a lot to work with, which gives him a great chance to be the bad guy fans have been waiting for in the MCU.
Civil Differences
Promotional material for Captain America: Civil War has revealed the rosters for Team Iron Man and Team Captain America. The great things about movies is that you can derive content from the source material and change it up to deliver something fresh.
Some of the characters, such as Black Widow are on Team Iron Man in print and film, however, there are other characters in the movie who were fighting for the opposite team in the comic book.
Source material snobbery be damned. Let’s take a look at the differences.
Hawkeye
In the movie: Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton was in many ways the heart and soul of earth’s mightiest heroes in Avengers: Age of Ultron. In Civil War he is aligned with Captain America.
In the comic book: Hawkeye had the unfortunate burden of being killed, resurrected, killed again, and resurrected again where he stayed alive this time while initially dealing with amnesia. These incidents had nothing to do with the conflict going on between Stark and Rogers.
Scarlet Witch
In the movie: Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch gravitated towards Steve Rogers near the end of Age of Ultron and sides with him in the upcoming film as we see her taking down Vision with her unique capabilities.
In the comic book: Do you remember what Hawkeye endured during Civil War? Well, Scarlett Witch is the reason why. Wanda Maxmioff has always been one of Marvel’s most powerful and unstable characters.
Black Panther
In the movie: Chadwick Boseman will have a lot of eyes on him as fans are waiting with baited breath to see if his Black Panther can live up to expectations. In the film, he is on Team Iron Man for reasons we won’t know until May 6th.
In the comic book: Black Panther was married to Storm of the X-Men, who we won’t see in the film. The royal couple of Wakanda initially chose neutral ground in regards to the conflict between the heroes. While visiting the White House, government officials tried to force Storm to sign the Superhuman Registration Act, despite her diplomat status. This lead both king and queen joining up with Captain America.
Vision
In the movie: Last time saw Vision he delivered the crushing blow that defeated Ultron and had joined what appeared to be the New Avengers under the leadership of Captain America and Black Widow. When Civil War comes around, Vision has joined Team Iron Man, which is not hard to understand considering he’s part Jarvis.
In the comic book: Vision assists the Young Avengers while pledging his support against the Super Human Registration Act.
What I Want Out of The Film
This is where I get to be a little bit selfish and talk about what I’m hoping to get out of the film. Captain America: Civil War promises the superhero melee that most of us have always wanted to see. While that should be extremely fun, I still want this to be first and foremost, a Captain America film.
Chris Evans exudes everything people love about the character and has made him more popular than ever before. Cap’s journey throughout the MCU has been that of someone who does the right thing while trying to find his place in the world.
Now that Cap had found his footing in the 21st century while saving the day on a regular in the process, it’s time to save and redeem a piece of his soul in the form of his best friend, James Buchanan Barnes, aka Bucky, aka the Winter Soldier is now going through something very similar to what Steve Rogers went through when he was unearthed in the Arctic.
Bucky is in peril and Captain America will always help his pal cause he with him ’til the end of the line.
