"Captain America: Civil War" may have the first Avenger's name in the title, but don't let that fool you. Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man is an equally crucial component of the upcoming superhero blockbuster. The thoughtless billionaire hard partying playboy who drinks a lot has done a ton of soul searching during his lifespan in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That's how he ends up supporting government regulation and oversight of superheroes in "Civil War."
Tony Stark has long had an obsession with control in the MCU. Whether it be his health, his image, his leadership, his demons or his responsibility to Earth's security, Tony has always tried to exert control.
"To me it seemed like the most viable arc," Downey said.
Given Tony's obsession with control, we understand why Downey feels like Iron Man's pro registration stance makes sense.
"I think what's interesting is not so much that he's looking for more control but that he's saying that as a group of individuals we all require a little bit more supervision than we might imagine," Downey continued. "And that for me was just a really straight line, because I don't like words coming out of a character's mouth that I adore because not only is he a little bit duplicitous but he's kind of practical in the way he thinks, and he thinks in terms of everyone's humanity and how quickly we can go against what we think we meant when we said it or what we believe."
We know that the catalyst for all these changes is a superhero mission gone wrong that results in collateral damage early on in "Civil War." However, unlike the source material, Tony Stark may actually have the moral high ground this time around.
"When we decided to do 'Civil War,' you read the books again and you realize, he really is the villain," Nate Moore, executive producer, said. "He makes a series of decisions that all of us would go, 'Well that's questionable if not evil to do X, Y, and Z.' So we wanted to kind of take those off the table. He's not cloning Thor, those kinds of ideas that are really fun when you read them on the page, but I think in publishing, it took me a couple years before I was cool with Tony Stark again."
Directors Joe and Anthony Russo hope the schism extends to movie goers as well. Captain America may be a symbol for freedom, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's always right.
"Obviously it will be easier for the audience to get behind Cap because it's his movie, it's his point of view and he has the most screen time," co-director Joe Russo said. "However, Tony has the most emotional motivation in the film. The most human motivation. Cap's is philosophical, we did that as a metric. It's natural instinct for an audience member to want to get behind the person that has more screen time and somebody as likable and rootable as Cap, so you have to work really hard to make sure that this is not a protagonist/antagonist movie. Hopefully by the time we're done, it's a very complex film where you walk out of the film having a fight with your buddy or your boyfriend/girlfriend about who was right in the film."
Why is Tony so emotionally invested? Well he likely feels some ownership over the massive destruction left in the wake of the Avengers missions, especially after Ultron. He's also probably none too pleased to hear about a certain metal-armed assassin who may have been involved in the death of his parents. We don't know for sure what drives him, but it sounds as if these factors play a part.
"It is implied that Hydra killed Howard Stark," co-writer Stephen McFeely said. "I think that's all we know, for sure, is that they did that. Bucky killed a lot of people..."
Moore expanded on Tony's mindset heading into this film, explaining:
"That was the most important thing: Giving Tony a reason that not only he can buy into and you can buy into, but other heroes who end up on his side don't feel like chumps for going along. If Tony goes off the reservation and says something crazy, and other people end up on his team you don't want the whole team to feel like dupes. You want to go, 'They have a really good reason. I may or may not agree with that, but it's logical, and it tracks.' So that was a big challenge - not making him feel like a megalomaniac who sells out all of his friends for something that you and I would go 'That's crazy.'"
When it comes to sides, Cap's got a pretty impressive squad. But, then again, so does Iron Man. Lining up behind Tony Stark is Don Cheadle's War Machine, Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow (surprisingly), Paul Bettany's Vision and newcomer Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther.
Of all the heroes, it seems to be an undisputed fact that Black Panther has the coolest costume.
"When he came out on set there were some comic book fans who were just tearing up," Joe Russo said. "It's a real moment for people to see this character for the first time on screen. People who grew up and championed this character as kids and was a role model for them, their favorite hero. The sense of that as a comic book fan, there was historic nature of getting him on screen for the first time."
With so many superheroes on screen, you might forget that this isn't the third entry into the "Avengers" series. No, "Civil War" is its own entity and it promises to be one of Marvel's biggest, and hopefully best, offerings.
"It's a sprawling film, no question," Joe Russo said. "There's a lot of characters, and characters are incredibly important to us, so we're making sure as much as we can that everybody has a fleshed-out arc in the movie. You can see how many people we've got out here, once you start trying to trigger arcs for everybody it becomes a very, very big, sprawling, epic film. This is much, much bigger than Winter Soldier. I think it's probably bigger than anything they've done to date."
"Captain America: Civil War" will hit theaters on May 6.
