Screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have written some of the most acclaimed entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date, having penned all three Captain America movies and the recent record-breaking blockbuster Avengers: Infinity War. It’s interesting to think, then, that they almost never got to contribute to the franchise at all, as they had to fight to get the gig on Captain America: The First Avenger.
While speaking to Kevin Smith on his Fat Man on Batman podcast, Markus and McFeely talked about the long process that led to them providing their first script for the MCU. The latter revealed that it all started when they were removed from Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, after penning the first two movies in the fantasy series.
“We had done the first three Narnias, right, and that third one was troubled, and the Writer’s Guild went on strike, and [the studio] called and said, ‘Hey, when the strike’s over, don’t come back.’ We went ‘okay, fine.’ So we had nothing to do but try to look for a job, and we spent all year sort of saying no to ’It stars a 13-year-old girl in a magical world of mystery,’ and we went, ‘we sort of want to do something else.’”
It was around this time that Marvel Studios first made their mark on the movie world by releasing Iron Man in 2008, which got the ball rolling on the groundbreaking shared universe. The duo were immediately intrigued by the idea of working on a future Marvel film – in particular, the period Captain America pic that the studio was planning caught their attention.
Having committed themselves to the project, McFeely explained that he and Markus had to work hard to convince Marvel that they were the best people for the job. Many months later, their perseverance finally paid off.
“And Iron Man came out and made it clear that they were going to make a whole run of stuff, including a period Captain America movie. And we went, ‘oh, we should get that.’ And we had to spend all of 2008 — say from the summer on — convincing them that we were the right guys and that, you know, it took a while. We got the gig in, like, Christmas 2008 and sort of never left Marvel.”
We bet Marvel don’t regret hiring the pair. The three Captain America films are seen as one of the most high-quality superhero trilogies ever and Avengers: Infinity War proved they’re worthy successors of Joss Whedon. No doubt Markus and McFeely will pull another great script out of the hat for next May’s Avengers 4 and we can’t wait to see what they come up with.
