Captain America: Civil War was a massive movie with a lot going on in it. With the introduction of several new characters alongside a whole handful of returning faces, there was more than enough to sink our teeth into. However, that doesn’t mean that directors Joe and Anthony Russo didn’t have a few ideas that they had to leave on the drawing board.
Doing the press rounds recently to promote their film’s upcoming Blu-ray release, the Russos revealed that both Iron Spider and Red Hulk almost featured in Civil War. Speaking about the latter, they noted that the character was considered, but there was just too much going on for him to be included.
“We had so many characters in that movie as it was. We consider everything, obviously, but with so many characters in that movie as it was to try and entertain adding another character and to get to the Red Hulk, you have to add a back story. You have to substantiate the narrative to get to that. [Thaddeus Ross], on our list of priorities, he was there sort of as the government’s agenda and not to add another complicated super powered character to the mix.”
“We had a board when we started this process of the movies with these Avengers characters that have ever graced the screen in a Marvel film and a list of characters that we have at our disposal that haven’t graced the screen. We spent the last six to eight months crafting stories around the cornucopia of characters at our disposal so anything is possible.”
Speaking about Spidey, we always knew that he’d be getting some kind of suit upgrade courtesy of Mr. Stark, which led many to believe that we could be seeing the Iron Spider appear. After all, the suit played a role in the Civil War comic books. When it came to the film, however, there was once again too much going on. That’s not to say that it won’t appear somewhere down the line, though, with the directors noting that it “falls in that category of anything’s possible. We consider everything.”
Obviously, the omission of both Red Hulk and Iron Spider are disappointing, but in the grand scheme of things, it does make sense that they were left out. There was simply no more room to add any kind of backstory for the former and as for the Iron Spider amor, seeing as Civil War was the first time we got to meet the new Spidey, it’s likely that Marvel didn’t want to throw in too much to distract us from getting acquainted with this new version of the character.
Plus, by not ruling out the appearance of either down the road, it’s entirely possible that both may show up in future films like Avengers: Infinity War. Or perhaps even sooner. After all, we’ve heard that Spidey will be receiving even more upgrades from Stark in Spider-Man: Homecoming, so could Iron Spider appear there? Time will tell.
Captain America: Civil War is available for digital download on September 2 and hits Blu-ray/DVD on September 13.
