Remember all of those good times The Avengers had in their first movie, like beating up Loki and eating shawarma? Well, the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is going to be a lot less friendly once Captain America 3 comes out. According to a big blow-out exclusive from Variety, not only will Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man be appearing in the star-spangled sequel, but it will also introduce Marvel’s Civil War event to the movies.
For anyone who missed the Mark Millar-written crossover that hit Marvel’s comics in 2006, the storyline is about the government passing a law that requires all superheroes to disclose their secret identities, register themselves, and become what are essentially super-powered cops. It turns into a whole big thing about civil liberties, the responsibilities of a hero, and the price we pay for security, and—hence the name—it divides the superhero community. Iron Man supports it, Captain America doesn’t, and eventually they decide to start beating each other up over their political ideals—as people are wont to do in America.
We don’t know how faithfully Captain America 3 will adapt Civil War—especially considering that Spider-Man plays a big role in the comic book version—but Variety seems to think it will at least follow the same basic premise. Interestingly, as Variety notes, the story essentially sets Iron Man up as the villain—since he’s the guy supporting the government, which we all know is only for losers—so this should have some pretty big repercussions for Robert Downey Jr.’s future in the Marvel movies. Additionally, Variety says the aftermath of the Civil War story will drive the series “for the next seven years” and will even have an impact on Avengers 4—which is still quite a few sequels away from the one Avengers movie that currently exists, just to give you an idea of how elaborate Marvel’s schemes are.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier directors Joe and Anthony Russo are set to return, and Frank Grillo—who played a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in that movie—will most likely pop up as the evil assassin Crossbones. At the risk of spoiling the original version of Civil War, Crossbones plays a pretty important role in how that story wraps up, so it probably indicates that things will end in a similar fashion if he does make an appearance in the movie. Also, as announced way back in April, Captain America 3 will be in theaters on May 6, 2016.
In other Civil War-related news, Marvel will apparently be rebooting the comic book version itself for some reason, as teased by this image posted on Twitter. We don’t know anything else about that at the moment, but we do appreciate Marvel making this even more complicated than it already is. Actually, this stuff has been pretty complicated for a while now. Remember when comic book movies were simple and we all ignored them because they were terrible? Those were the days.