During the build up to Captain America: Civil War, many fans speculated as to which character would be killed; to some, their pick was Steve Rogers himself. This previously possible scenario would’ve followed the comic, which made it a popular choice. In a recent Q & A with directors Joe and Anthony Russo, coming to us via Hitfix, the brothers revealed that killing Cap was once a possibility.
Anthony Russo: “We never talked about killing Cap in this one, right? No.”
Joe Russo: “We did for a beat. We talk about everything.”
Anthony Russo: “I think the thing to remember is, we do talk about every possible scenario over and over and over again for months and months and months. We talked about it. But it never made its way into a realistic outline.”
Joe then went on to talk about their choice to not kill a character at the end of the film.
“We talked about lots of potential characters dying at the end of the movie. And we thought that it would undercut what is really the rich tension of the movie, which is this is Kramer vs Kramer. It’s about a divorce. If somebody dies, it would create empathy, which would change and allow for repair, and we didn’t want to do that.”
Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige was also at the Q & A, and he briefly talked about the goal of Civil War heading into Infinity War, as well as the differences between the original comic story and its film adaptation.
“Well, the ending was always more about fracturing the team completely before getting into Infinity War.”
“In the amazing comic book story, which certainly the conceit of this movie is based on and some of the specifics — during their big battle, which has a hundred times as many characters, a character dies. And we talked about that for a while. And, ultimately, we thought what happened to Rhodey would be enough of a downer.”
Captain America: Civil War is now available on Blu-Ray, DVD, and digital download.
