Tom Holland may have called Spider-Man: No Way Home the single most ambitious standalone superhero movie ever made, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe is hardly known for intimate character-driven drama. All of the franchise’s efforts are massive in scope and scale, but Captain America: Civil War remains hard to top from a solo perspective.
After all, it’s basically an Avengers movie in everything but name, featuring almost the entire lineup of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, while it also introduced the masses to Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther for good measure. It’s a huge beast without a doubt, but we’re hearing from our sources – the same ones who told us the project was in development long before it was confirmed – that Anthony Mackie’s Captain America 4 will blow it out of the water.
While that’s not a confirmation that we’re getting yet another mini-Avengers outing, a broad phrase that’s been used to describe almost every upcoming Phase Four title, it could be the biggest in a number of different ways. For instance, it could end up having a seismic impact on the mythology at large, introduce brand new heroes for the first time, reshuffle the deck significantly in terms of alliances, friendships and allegiances, or it could be something else altogether.
‘Big’ doesn’t always mean ‘expensive and shiny’, and with Captain America 4 only in the earliest stages of coming together behind the scenes, it’s going to be a while before we get any specifics. Mackie claimed he could headline a movie that would out-gross Tom Holland’s Spider-Man franchise at the box office, so he needs to deliver the goods if he wants to back it up.
