It was considered the most difficult scene in all of Captain America: Civil War, setting the stage for a grand superhero dust-up between Teams Iron Man and Cap, and screenwriter Stephen McFeely has now reflected on some of the fan-pleasing surprises tossed into the airport sequence in an interview with io9.
Rolling out money shot after money shot, there’s no question that said scene was one of the key highlights of Civil War, demanding a second viewing not only for the remarkably coherent action, but for all of the moment-to-moment exchanges between Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
Once the going gets tough, it is Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man that plays his ace card by transforming into Giant-Man, an experiment that he previously only conducted in a lab before passing out. It sets the stage for a brilliant sequence cut straight from the comic panels, and here McFeely reveals that both he and co-writer Christopher Markus had to fight tooth and nail to ensure that Rudd’s transformation evaded the cutting room floor.
“The brothers had to fight for it. They had to go to the studio and say, ‘No it’s not silly, it’s cool.’ It’s a comic book movie! In the grounded Winter Soldier, it’s Three Days of the Condor except in the middle there’s a talking robot that tells you HYDRA has been there the whole time. And a lot of people went, ‘That’s a little much.’ No, it’s a comic book movie! That’s okay. Same thing here, except it’s Giant-Man.’” Christopher Markus echose that sentiment, adding: “Some people are like ‘What does Ant-Man do in a big fight? Well, he can become the most powerful thing,. It will be awesome and it is a literal escalation of the fight.”
Bouncing off that, Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige also touched base on Peter Parker’s plan to topple Giant-Man and that Empire Strikes Back reference.
“It was just a great idea to turn the tide of the battle in a huge, shocking, unexpected way. We have a lot of ideas for Ant-Man 2, none of which are contingent upon revealing Giant-Man, so we thought this would be the fun, unbelievable unexpected way to do that. We knew if we got Spidey we could have him do the AT-AT thing.”
Captain America: Civil War is currently out in theatres and doing gangbusters, now that Joe and Anthony Russo’s ensemble flick has crossed the $700 million milemarker at the international box office.
