FLYING THE FLAG

THE MCU’S ODD COUPLE GET THEIR OWN DISNEY+ SERIES TO EXPLORE WHO’LL BE THE EXT CAPTAIN AMERICA IN THE FRLGON WINTER SOLDIER

- TARA BENNETT

IF THERE’S ONE THING you can be certain about with Marvel Studios, it’s that it’s always 10 steps ahead of its audience. That’s not easy considering that it has made six of the 20 biggest-grossing films ever, its fandom includes more than 30 million social media followers, and it has spawned a cottage industry revolving around trying to unearth spoilers about forthcoming titles. Yet it continues to keep most of its secrets locked down, in order to surprise and delight. Case in point: when Kevin Feige, President of Marvel Studios, announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2019 the slate for Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe – including, for the first time, series-based storytelling to air exclusively on Disney+ – the studio had already been developing all of it since 2018, including WandaVision and The Falcon And The Winter Soldier.

Knowing the value of their wide range of supporting Avengers characters, Feige and the creatives at Marvel Studios saw Disney+ as an opportunity to finally give focused attention to the stories the films haven’t been able to dig into. The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, a six-part one-off series, will honor a deeper exploration of the baton pass from the end of Avengers: Endgame – where Old Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) gives his Captain America shield to Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and a rehabilitated Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) – and what those two men do with it next.

CASTING THE SPELLMAN