Whiplash. Red Skull. Ronan the Accuser. Outside of Tom Hiddleston’s mischievous Loki, the one common criticism levelled at the Marvel Cinematic Universe is its poor treatment of villains, with many adversaries coming and going without resonating with ardent fans.
As our review of Captain America: Civil War attests, that’s something that sadly continues into Joe and Anthony Russo’s imminent blockbuster, with Daniel Brühl’s Baron Zemo utilized more as a plot device to pull the Avengers together – before eventually tearing them apart – than a compelling, nuanced antagonist.
That’s something that Civil War screenwriters Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus address in a new interview with JoBlo. Citing Marvel and Netflix’s success through the superhero shows – think Kingpin, Kilgrave or the Punisher – both McFeely and Markus believes it’s a question of running time.
“If you think about it, I get the criticism, but the early phases were all origin stories. It tends to create a similar villain. When it is no longer an origin story, I think you might have a little bit more freedom to create different villains. I’m sensitive to the problem. I get it. But it wasn’t the Robert Redford story, it was Captain America: Winter Soldier.
It wasn’t the Red Skull’s journey [in The First Avenger], it was the journey of one guy going from ninety pound weakling to American hero and then going into the ice. So in a 120-minute movie it is difficult, and Thanos will possibly change that, but you want time spent. Excuse me for going on a tangent but I love the Marvel/Netflix shows because you have so much more time to spend with your villains. It’s literally minutes and hours spent. We have 120-minutes and Jessica Jones had how ever many it had.”
Now approaching the eve of its North American bow, Marvel has dropped what is surely one of the final TV clips for Captain America: Civil War, this time welcoming the return of Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye – just in the nick of time, too. You can check it out above and let us know how excited you are for the film by commenting below.
