Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Captain America: Brave New World.
Captain America: Brave New World is finally here and it’s performing better than expected – commercially, if not critically. But even with $192 million in global ticket sales over its opening weekend, you have to wonder: is Brave New World the movie Disney and Marvel Studios really wanted?
After all, Brave New World entered production at a very different time (under a very different name). Marvel kicked off development in 2021. From a political standpoint, that’s mid-Biden Administration, pre-Gaza War; on a purely MCU level, it’s also early in Phase Four, and years before plans for Phases Five and Six changed dramatically.
Given all this, if Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige and his team were starting from scratch on Captain America: Brave New World in 2025, would they still have made the same film? I’m guessing no – even if Brave New World does just enough to keeping the MCU machine rumbling along.
Captain America: Brave New World’s Politics Problem
Like I said earlier, the political landscape was wildly different when pre-production on Captain America: Brave New World commenced. The Jan. 6 riots were still a fresh memory, and everyone (including Brave New World‘s five credited screenwriters) was preoccupied with the state of democracy in the US. This – combined with a generally pro-progressivism (or “woke,” if you’re that way inclined) culture across Disney and its subsidiaries – is how you end up with a Captain America sequel that culminates in the president Hulking out when he faces his exit from the White House.
Equally, the Gaza War hadn’t broken out yet in 2021. As such, the idea of an elite Israeli soldier like Shira Haas’ Ruth Bat-Seraph – even in heavily modified, non-Mossad form – as an ultimately sympathetic supporting character probably didn’t strike anyone at Marvel as a big deal. Certainly, no one was intentionally courting controversy. Adding Bat-Seraph (otherwise known as Marvel’s first Israeli superhero, Sabra) was just another move towards greater representation within the MCU.
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But would Marvel or Disney have approved either of these elements of Brave New World‘s story in 2025? Probably not. Heck, in December 2024, Disney CEO Bob Iger declared that Disney’s days of foregrounding “certain” – and by that, I have to imagine he means “progressive” – political positions in its entertainment output were over (itself a political act, but I digress). In short: Iger doesn’t want anything in an MCU outing that could alienate anyone, least of all more conservative viewers.
Admittedly, this wouldn’t have automatically nixed the Red Hulk plot point in Captain America: Brave New World in 2025. Despite the superficial Trump parallels, President Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross doesn’t really function as takedown of the Oval Office’s real-life occupant. The whole point of Ross’s arc is redemption, not recrimination. Lip service to making a bigger effort to breach the divide aside, this whole thread of Brave New World‘s narrative is, if anything, weirdly apolitical. But as for the Sabra stuff? I bet Marvel and Disney would’ve reshot these scenes with someone playing another espionage-oriented character (Abigail Brand, maybe?) if they could’ve gotten away with it.
The MCU Isn’t Scaling up in 2025 Like It Was in 2021
Politics aside, Captain America: Brave New World doesn’t feel like an MCU project Disney or Marvel Studios would greenlight in 2025 purely on strategic grounds. In 2021, Disney’s priority was scaling up the MCU by cranking out as many movies and Disney+ shows per year as possible. But in 2025? Not so much.
In May 2024, Iger confirmed that he was dialling back the increasingly outsized slate of MCU content that reached its peak under his predecessor, Bob Chapek. In theory, this should allow Marvel Studios to “focus more on quality,” while also staving off franchise fatigue. It also suggests that a flick like Brave New World – with its extensive reshoots – might’ve received more time to gestate before cameras rolled, if pre-production had started in 2025. Alternatively, it might’ve been scrapped altogether.
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And for its part, Marvel Studios likely would’ve developed aspects of the fourth Captain America installment differently had Feige and co. known that the trajectory of the MCU’s overarching, Multiverse Saga was about to change. In 2021, the franchise-wide game plan was still built around Avengers: Secret Wars, as it is today. The key difference was that Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror was supposed to be the villain. But then Majors was found guilty of assault and harassment in late 2023, and Marvel fired him. The following July, Robert Downey Jr. came aboard to replace Majors as the MCU’s new big bad, Doctor Doom.
Surely, this pivot from Kang to Doom is something Brave New World could’ve been teased better with a bit more up front prep? As it stands, the movie’s clunky post-credits scene comes across as a last-minute stop-gap, not a carefully considered piece of a much larger puzzle. Indeed, it’s hard to escape the sense that Tim Blake Nelson’s Samuel Sterns refers to ominous “others” in Brave New World‘s stinger simply because, at the time, not even Marvel was 100% certain who Secret Wars‘ villain was!
Captain America: Brave New World Still Does What Marvel and Disney Needed It To Do
Yet for all that I’ve just said, I’m not sure Disney or Marvel outright regrets Captain America: Brave New World. For one thing, it’s spared them another Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania or The Marvels reputation-tarnishing box office failure (unless ticket sales plummet). For another, Brave New World does its bit to set the stage for the MCU Phase Six and Secret Wars.
Does it do so more controversially and less elegantly than Disney or Marvel would’ve hoped? Absolutely. But execution quibbles notwithstanding, it still foreshadows both a new Avengers roster and an epic, multiverse-spanning showdown. So, all told, I suspect Disney and Marvel are actually quite happy with Captain America: Brave New World right now – even if it’s not a movie they would’ve made in 2025.
Captain America: Brave New World is in cinemas now.
Published: Feb 17, 2025 8:20 PM UTC