Press Conference: The Cast & Crew of ‘The Falcon and The Winter Soldier’ Discuss The New MCU Series
The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is here!
Earlier this week, I had the chance to attend a virtual press conference to sit down with the cast and crew of the new series.
Check out some of the highlights from the The Falcon and The Winter Soldier conference below:
Head Writer Malcolm Spellman talked about why he thought these two would be perfect for a series.
Spellman: There was about a 12-second moment in Civil War where it feels like every single Marvel fan, Kevin Feige, and all his cabal partners, knew that these two guys were gonna be able to support a, uh, uh, movie or a franchise. And in doing the interviews, I feel like you can’t really take credit for the tone because in that 12 seconds everybody knew what it was gonna be, and that’s just-that’s sort of a transcendent thing. Um, the buddy-cop-the-or, the buddy-two-hander genre, what-what we loved about them is the range tonally.
You can go from as gritty as 48 Hours to as comedic as Rush Hour, but in between there is sort of that first Lethal Weapon and that first Bad Boys. And what we liked about it was it allows Sebastian and Anthony to do what they do and create that magic, but also allows the broader creative to – if you need to take on real issue or if you need to get into something very Marvel-y, it’s a very durable form of storytelling.
Director Kari Skogland spoke about why she shot the series as a 6-hour film.
Skogland: From the beginning, we were making a six-hour film. We just kind of figured out where to snip it at certain hour marks. Malcolm and I did a lot of looking at shows, but primarily movies, that were in our paradigm because we have a buddy-cop kind of relationship going on. So we looked at some of those. I looked at a lot of different influences to help me put it into a box. I looked at David Lean. I looked at Midnight Cowboy. So, I really go very wide and then try to put it in a pot and sorta stir it and come up with something that is uniquely signature for our look.
Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan spoke about how the action is elevated in this series.
Mackie: It’s more hand-to-hand combat. It’s more physical. It’s more assertive. It’s more of us utilizing our strengths, instead of something else. So, because of that, the stunt guys had a field day. Wyatt [Russell], Sebastian, and I did a lot of stunt training to be able to go in, and a lot of the stuff you see is us. But we had amazing stuntmen to go in and kick ass for us!
Stan: It was pretty on par with the films, I felt. Actually, even more evolved and intense, I would say. It feels like the action really intensified in a lot of ways. We’re always finding new ways to have them evolve with their action sequences. But it’s tonally the same as the movies.
Stan went on to talk about Bucky’s PTSD in the is series.
Stan: We’re really finally kind of zooming in on his quest for identity and in terms of really accepting his past and sort of re-educating himself about the world that he’s currently in, the ideals and principles he might’ve lived by, and been driven by at one point that perhaps no longer serve him the same way. The whole subject of PTSD and the experience that they both share as soldiers, as men who have served, is one of the things that bring them together. There’s a bit of an honor code between them. Even though they come from different ideas or opinions about things, there’s mutual respect. PTSD grounds both of these characters in very realistic ways.
Feige spoke about Sam Wilson and getting more history about his backstory.
Feige: And we’ve seen a lot of cool action with both of them before. And more importantly, as I think you also see in that first episode and will see much more of over the course of the series, learn who the heck they are. We know a little bit about the poor Bucky Barnes and what he’d been through. Sam Wilson, other than that he likes the job and is an inherently moral man and had been in the service and worked with PTSD, we didn’t know much about them. So, it was really an opportunity to go deep.
Feige then went on to speak about the possibilities of a second season.
Feige: If we were able to do another season, there are certainly ideas. The slight difference, of course, is as you’ve all heard me say, and I think is becoming clear with WandaVision, that they really will go back and forth between the Disney+ series and the Marvel Studios features. So, where characters show up, and how, sometimes will be in a direct season two, sometimes will be in a feature, and then into an additional season. We’re just not gonna say who does what right this second.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is now streaming exclusively on Disney+.
