Long before Sony and Marvel brokered a deal for the beloved web-slinger to appear in the MCU, co-director Anthony Russo revealed that Spider-Man was always considered to be a core part of the story for Captain America: Civil War.
Helming the hotly-anticipated sequel alongside his brother Joe, Anthony Russo noted that introducing Spidey in Civil War had always been ‘Plan A’, though the director admits that the writing team had hatched a back-up plan if those aforementioned negotiations were to have fallen through.
It’s a comic book reunion that fans have been pining for and now, come 2016, that near-complete roster of Avengers will stand shoulder to shoulder on the same silver screen.
“From the second we had the idea to do the story of Civil War, Spider-Man was a part of the story. It was a very complicated business arrangement for Marvel Studios to be able to use Spider-Man from Sony. So, we were always told by Marvel ‘Don’t count on it, you may not get to use Spider-Man, so you better have a plan B’ And we were like ‘Okay, we get it, we have a plan B if don’t get Spider-Man; we’ll figure the movie out’. But the truth is, we never had a plan B. We only have envisioned the movie with Spider-Man. He was always a part of the story. It was very important to us to reintroduce the character.”
Granted, Spider-Man was conspicuously absent from the first teaser released by Marvel late last month – not to mention which side he’ll fall on, but the general consensus points to Team Iron Man – though it’s claimed that Tom Holland’s webslinger will have a significant role to play in the superhero proceedings. Speaking of which, Russo also touched base on the cast of a young Spider-Man in Holland.
“We cast him young, Tom Holland is a young actor; a teen himself, and we really liked playing into that nature of the character and we think it makes him very special in the universe of the Marvel characters. I think people are really gonna love Spider-Man in this film.”
Captain America: Civil War will find Earth’s Mightiest Heroes succumb to an almighty power struggle when Joe and Anthony Russo’s threequel – Avengers 2.5, essentially – lands in theaters on May 6, 2016.