Russo Brothers Breakdown Captain America: Civil War Trailer

By now we have watched Captain America: Civil War trailer a couple of times, but we have missed a lot of secrets & Russo Brothers break down the trailer for us.

Directors Anthony and Joe Russo sat down with Empire and revealed some secrets, here are some of the biggest secrets:

“You’ve operated with unlimited power and no supervision,” says Ross.

“You cannot have a character called Captain America without examining the politics of what that means, especially in this day and age, says Joe Russo.

The heroes in this universe operate under their own auspices, not under the directive of a government, and that can cause a lot of problems.

There’s a certain level of imperialism that we’re examining – what right do those that have power have to use that power, even if it’s to do good? How do you govern that kind of power?”

Russo goes on to talk about The Accords (Superhero Registration Act in Civil War comic):

“We’re using the essence of what Civil War was about, said Joe Russo. The comic book isn’t applicable to the storytelling that we’ve structured up to this point, but the concept of registration, the notion that heroes need to be either monitored or controlled because their power can be scary, is applicable.”

“The Accords are the world jointly trying to govern the Avengers moving forward, continues Joe Russo.

It has to do with the effects of Ultron and Sokovia [the small city that Ultron tried to drop on the Earth from a great height at the end of Age Of Ultron], and New York City [roundly trashed at the end of The Avengers], and Washington D.C. [nearly devastated by falling helicarriers at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier].

Examining the third acts of all the Marvel movies, we’re saying, if you could point to the collateral damage in all those incidents, could you use that against the Avengers to control them?”

“That’s something the world can no longer tolerate,” says Ross, as we see Steve lost deep in thought. What’s he contemplating? In the comic book, his opposition to the idea of registration led him to go rogue. In the movie, he chooses a similar path, but for different reasons. For very personal reasons.

“The challenge was, we’re doing the story of Civil War, says Anthony Russo. Which everybody knows is nominally about superhero registration. And in a lot of ways that can be a political issue, and we didn’t want the conflict of the movie to solely exist on that level.

We wanted to figure out very personal reasons why everyone’s relationship to this idea of registration is going to become complicated. That’s what the relationship between Steve and Bucky allowed us to do, to get very personal in terms of why people would lean one way or the other.”

Joe talks about William Hurt’s return as General Thunderbolt Ross:

“The job is to tie all these films together. To be able to pull from The Hulk, which may have been forgotten about a little bit, and make it relevant again within the cinematic universe, is important to us.

We thought it would be interesting to take a character who had a fanatical anti-superhero point of view. Now he’s become much savvier and more political and has put himself in a position of power, not unlike a Colin Powell. He’s cornering the Avengers politically now, he’s out-manoeuvring them.”

Although Civil War is about Cap and Bucky reuniting and how that affects his other relationships with Tony Stark and The Accords, Russo’s explains they wanted to to test out the characters and the relationships between them:

“We thought it would be interesting to take that relationship that was so strong in Winter Soldier, and test it, says Joe Russo.

She sees that they have made mistakes, very public mistakes and she’s trying to convince Steve that it might not be as black and white as he sees it and maybe they have some culpability, and maybe they have to accept that culpability, and then find a way to work within the system so that the Avengers aren’t disbanded.”

“The way we went about it, it was about tracing what was going on with these characters and we would examine each character on a very personal level – how would they respond to the idea of registration? What stakes would they have in this issue? Why is it good or bad for them? That’s how we went about it,” says Anthony Russo.

And now moving on to Black Panther, played by Chadwick Boseman.

Russos talk about Boseman’s Black Panther costume: “It’s a combination of a practical costume and VFX. It’s a vibranium weave, a mesh, almost like a chainmail. Luminescence is something we have to do in post.”

As for his motivations in the film and which side he takes, “He’s there for a very different reason which brings him into conflict with Cap and his team. His motivations are not their motivations,” said Joe.

Baron Zemo is in the movie and if you didn’t catch him in the trailer, he is in Germany’s Leipzig-Halle airport scene with Scarlet Witch.

Joe goes on to talk about Baron Zemo: “Zemo in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is not Zemo from the comics, and what’s interesting and surprising is that we don’t always honour the mythology from the books.

One, because it’s predictable and two, it’s not servicing the story in the way we want. So, if Zemo were in this movie, I think people should expect that it’s going to be something fresh and exciting.”

And now moving on to talk about the relationship conflict between Cap, Iron Man and Winter Soldier.

“The theme of the movie is betrayal and it’s a very powerful theme, reveals Joe Russo. The movie’s extremely emotional. It hinges on that emotion, and on a very personal level we didn’t want the movie to become about politics and people arguing about platitudes.

The third act is built around a very personal moment between these characters.”

“It was important for us to make sure that you very clearly understood that this is a companion to Winter Soldier. It’s not a companion to Age Of Ultron, this is not a companion to Infinity War…,” Joe Russo concluded.

Captain America: Civil War is scheduled to be released on May 6, 2016, in 3D and IMAX 3D.