With the news that Spider-Man could be appearing in Marvel's Captain America: Civil War, it's easy to forget everything else that will be going on. That film is going to be absolutely stacked from top to bottom with cool stuff that should also prove pivotal to Phase Three and beyond. Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther should be debuting, as a lead-in to his future solo film. And there will also be a serious ideological split that emerges between Captain American and Iron Man, which sets up the "civil war" that divides the Avengers. While speaking with Empire, Robert Downey Jr. talked about the idea of Iron Man being the film's antagonist, some of the real-world implications of Tony Stark's actions, and also how Avengers: Age of Ultron ties into 'Civil War'...
RDJ: " The main thing to me is, and this is where I think the Russos are quite brilliant and where Kevin backed the play, is what sort of incident could occur and what sort of framework could we find Tony in? The clues are in Ultron about where we might find him next. But what would it take for Tony to completely turn around everything he’s stood for, quote-unquote, because he was the right-wing guy who could still do his own thing. When the first Iron Man came out the liberals and conservatives were both like, ‘You’re our guy’. Yes! Score! But the idea of Tony being able to march into Washington and say, ‘I’ll sign up’, wouldn’t have made sense if the political climate in the real world hadn’t shifted the way it has. It’s a little bit of things following a real world continuum in, ‘What would you do?’ There’s always the bigger overarching question, that Joss brings up all the time - it’s kind of weird that these guys would have all these throw downs all over planet Earth and it looked like a little collateral damage happened over there, and yet when the movie’s over, it’s like nobody minds. You have to figure, ‘Were you to ask the question, what would the American government do if this were real? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see Tony doing something you wouldn’t imagine?'"
The Marvel movies have remained apolitical for the most part so it's interesting to even think of Stark as "right-wing" and Captain America as being on the "left", but it's true that their political differences has always been a key sticking point in the comics. And while Iron Man is obviously going to be a huge part of Captain America: Civil War, Downey let it be known it is still a Captain America movie first. He also doesn't think Iron Man can necessarily be called the movie's villain.
RDJ: "I wouldn't put it that way. Ultimately it’s Steve’s story; it doesn’t say ‘Iron Man 4: Civil War’. I think that’s great too. I think Chris [Evans] has been hungry to bring even more of an underside and some shadow to that. I remember the comics – on the surface you got the sense that Cap was baseball and apple pie, but underneath there was all this churning stuff of being a man out of time. Now we know he’s made his peace with that. What’s the bigger issue? It can have a little something to do with the past, but it can be about someone becoming more modernized in their own conflict.”
Captain America: Civil War will be directed by the Russo Brothers and opens May 6th 2016.
