The Civil War storyline was not always the first choice for the third movie in the Captain America franchise. The initial storyline of the movie was going to be around the Madbomb. As revealed recently by Nate Moore, it was due to the Marvel Boss, Kevin Feige, we didn’t get to watch Madbomb. Although Civil War is a much bigger event than the Madbomb story arc, the rejected storyline could have introduced a unique Zombie-Esque event in the MCU.
Captain America: Civil War is easily one of the best movies in the MCU. The rift between the Avengers, the introduction of Baron Zemo, and also the setting up of multiple new characters made the Russo Brothers directorial a fan favorite. But instead of pitching the superheroes against one another, the initial script had Chris Evans’ character going against his morality to fight the civilians.
What was the original Captain America 3 script about?
It was also previously revealed by the Russo Brothers in 2016 how their whole idea regarding the project was different. As Marvel recently dropped its Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, executive producer Nate Moore appeared in an interview where he elaborated on the whole incident around the Captain America 3 script. This sheds light on a very different approach planned by the makers.
Nate Moore said in The Town podcast that while the movie still had the original ideas like the story arcs of Baron Zemo and Winter Soldier in their plan, the conflict would have been much different.
“And we were building the movie around a MacGuffin around the Madbomb, which, the Madbomb goes off and causes normal people to start fighting each other. It’s honestly a little similar to what I think they did in Kingsman.”
The Madbomb in Marvel Comics is a device that can turn people insane on being activated. The people around the area of its activation get enraged and start fighting each other wildly. This storyline already hints that the movie was about to give us a setup similar to the Hollywood Zombie movies. And this would also present a complicated situation for Chris Evans‘ Steve Rogers to go against the civilians to control the chaos.
But unfortunately, the Marvel Boss scraped the whole idea to go for the Civil War and we don’t know if Madbomb is preserved for any major future projects.
Why did Kevin Feige trash the Madbomb idea?
As revealed by Nate Moore, the MCU Boss didn’t think the original Captain America threequel script was big enough. Even though the original script had all the politics and grounded approach taken by a Captain America project, Feige opted for Civil War.
“And it was cool, and it was grounded, and it was political, and whatever, and [Feige] was like, ‘That’s not a big enough idea, guys.’ And we’re like, ‘Let us write a draft, we’ll prove it to you.’ [Feige:] ‘Okay, prove it to me.’ As we’re getting done with it… he pulls me into his office and he said, ‘You know, I think we should try to do Civil War.’ “
Surprisingly the MCU didn’t have the adequate resources needed to carry out the Civil War storyline as pointed out by Moore to Feige who on the other hand was optimistic about it till the end.
“And I was like, ‘Kevin, we don’t have half the stuff that’s in Civil War. We don’t have the New Warriors, we don’t have… Here’s all the reasons why we can’t do it.’ And he’s like, ‘Go home, read it, let’s talk about it.’”
Kevin Feige made it very clear to the makers of the movie that Captain America 3 couldn’t have a bigger and better storyline than Civil War. In a meeting, he clearly stated:
“So, stop with the Madbomb, you guys are doing Civil War.”
What happened next is known by every Marvel fan. Anthony and Joe Russo were quite successful in making one of the best Marvel movies and the movie was appreciated by everyone. The conflict among the Avengers exhilarated both comic book fans as well as normal audiences. We don’t know if someday the Madbomb storyline will get a live-action version or not but the fans would be heavily excited.
As for Captain America: New World Order, there is no update about the storyline. Not only we are going to witness Anthony Mackie’s character with the Vibranium shield in a full-length movie of his own, but the movie is also bringing back Tim Blake Nelson’s The Leader from The Incredible Hulk.
Captain America: New World Order is going to release on May 3, 2024, while Captain America: Civil War can be streamed on Disney+.
Source: The Town
