cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/18397465

It’s been six years since Steve Rodgers handed over Captain America reigns to Sam Wilson, Aka The Falcon, in “Avengers: Endgame.” Wilson (Anthony Mackie) will be the lead of Julius Onah’s “Captain America: Brave New World.” A trailer was released in the summer.

Two different cuts of the film test screened last week, and plot details for one of the cuts have leaked online. The person who attended didn’t seem to like the movie all that much.

Based on the folks I’ve spoken to, those who attended were either given a red or green bracelet and were split up into two different theaters. The reactions I’ve heard have not been very kind to this movie, which is being described as “inessential” and “flat.”

Reshoots on ‘Brave New World’ happened in August. This could explain why two different cuts were shown. Last year, after receiving negative test scores in another screening, and Marvel themselves underwhelmed by an early cut they saw of the film, ‘Brave New World’ was delayed to February 2025. Extensive reshoots were called, with “three major action sequences” having been filmed, between May and August 2024 in Atlanta.

‘Brave New World’ had originally wrapped filming in June 2023, and was set for a July 2024 release date, but it’s now turned into this monstrous mess for Marvel. You just don’t push a movie this big out of your calendar, and then decide to dump it in February, unless major trouble is brewing.

Last December, Matthew Orton was hired by Marvel to pen “additional scenes and material”. Orton’s work was shot during this summer’s reshoots. They’ve also added new characters to the story. Will audiences even show up to a Captain America movie that doesn’t star Chris Evans?

  • HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    If the movie doesn’t end with him assembling a new team of Avengers out of Marvel’s most popular characters (including a mysteriously resurrected Wanda — no explanation needed yet) to help him defeat the bad guy, they’re wasting their time.

    And all the new Avengers need to say that they’re only joining the team because of their person respect for Sam Wilson. That makes Sam important, and leans into his greatest strength, which is being a nice guy.

  • MimicJar@lemmy.worldM
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    11 hours ago

    That’s not great news.

    Also for a film coming out in February, there isn’t much more than can do. Maybe ADR a few lines.

    I also wonder if they’ll introduce a little more in the later trailers to prime folks for some of the, what I assume were going to be, surprises.

    Of course maybe the other cut is better, and we don’t have any news on that.

  • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
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    12 hours ago

    Has there ever been a time when a test screening was wrong?

    Then again, why would any company admit to it? Who knows, maybe the test screening of Joker 2 was to wild applause.

    • yannic@lemmy.ca
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      8 hours ago

      I can’t put my finger on the specific film, but there are those where the happy ending seems especially contrived, and the director’s commentary lamented that’s because anything less than a happy ending tended to test poorly with viewers. It might have something to do with the fact that they tested them tight after they watch the film rather than letting it sink in for a bit.

      Test screenings are the J.D. Power Initial Quality Award of the film industry.

      • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        The Average Joes were supposed to lose to Globo Gym, but I don’t know that I’d call a line infraction leading to a blindfolded sudden death throw-off contrived

    • Microw@lemm.eeOP
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      12 hours ago

      While it is hard to get “official” information about it, there definitely have been news reports that some of the most successful movies ever had some bad test screenings and vice versa.

  • TommySoda@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    I mentally checked out of the MCU after Endgame. The only Marvel content I’ve seen beyond that is Guardians of the Galaxy 3.

    • wjrii@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      I watch pretty much all of it still. Eventually. Sometimes months later. I think Echo is the only one I haven’t finished, but I saw several of them months late.

      It’s mostly fine, but that’s about as far as I’d go. Among other issues, Multiverses dangle the specter of irrelevance in front of every story. I know it’s not always there in the script, but the meta commentary that everyone is replaceable and any event can be undone unavoidably reduces the stakes and my investment in characters. If they bother to make a point of concluding the “multiverse” arc, it needs to be something that promises to make the storytelling crutch mechanic of crossing between them much harder to invoke in the future. It can be utter handwavium, but I need that promise from the Marvel Industrial Complex to me as an audience member.

      Then more generally, the Marvel “house style” is either so overwhelming that it ends up the equivalent of pleasant but low-stakes episodic TV from the before-times with 23 episodes per season, or else it’s shoehorned into a halfhearted attempt to let a director or showrunner do their thing and reduces the effectiveness of both. There was good TV then, and there is good Marvel now, but the specialness has worn off.

      • MimicJar@lemmy.worldM
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        11 hours ago

        Among other issues, Multiverses dangle the specter of irrelevance in front of every story. I know it’s not always there in the script, but the meta commentary that everyone is replaceable and any event can be undone unavoidably reduces the stakes and my investment in characters.

        I hear this a lot, but except in “What If…” for one character, they’ve never even hinted at doing this. I understand that it’s always hanging there, but is that a real concern or an imaginary one?

        Tony invented time travel and it’s clear by the end of Endgame they can use it whenever. However no one ever says that lowers the stakes even though clearly everything can be fixed by that too.

        Every story could just be solved by having Thor and/or Captain Marvel show up. They’re invincible. They have super strong powers. And yet we’re understanding when they don’t show up and solve everything.

        Again I understand the concern, but I feel like they are imagined and not what is being told.


        crossing between them much harder to invoke in the future.

        I can assure you after Secret Wars that will be the case.

        • ApollosArrow@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          This was also going to be my response since I see this “anyone can come back” mentioned often, because of the Multiverse. Thanos: Dead, Tony Stark: Dead, Cap: Gone, Black Widow: Dead, HawkEye: likely retiring. The only two that came back were Gamora, because James Gunn had a story to finish, and Loki, which resulted in one of my favorite shows and was mostly isolated. Even without the “multiverse” aspect of it, heroes can come back from the dead in many ways.

          Hell, they could easily have done a “Nomad” show of Cap and his adventures with Peggy in the new timeline in the past, but they opted not to do that.

          • MimicJar@lemmy.worldM
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            5 hours ago

            I forgot about Gamora, largely because it isn’t a drop in, it’s a whole film to understand that it isn’t a drop in.

            In terms of Cap (Steve Rogers), I fully expect them to cash that in someday, but honestly I’m ok with that. Not day one, but someday.

        • Zorque@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          Wasn’t the time travel pretty clearly multiversal in nature, though? They wouldn’t be able to change their own past, only create a different future for another universe.

          • MimicJar@lemmy.worldM
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            10 hours ago

            It’s pretty hand wavy, even though Hulk explains. For example Steve goes back and stays in the past, but it also becomes the future for everyone else. Or did we change which universe we followed when Steve stayed in the past?

            • Zorque@lemmy.world
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              10 hours ago

              I believe it’s implied that Steve traveled back to our timeline for the end of the movie.

              It’d be real odd for just one scene to follow that logic while every other one doesn’t.

  • YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    Anthony Mackie sucked so bad in Altered Carbon S2 that I don’t think I’ll ever enjoy anything he’s in again.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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    19 hours ago

    After meeting with newly elected U.S. President Thaddeus Ross, played by Harrison Ford in his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut, Sam finds himself in the middle of an international incident. He must discover the reason behind a nefarious global plot before the true mastermind has the entire world seeing red.

    I could not be less interested.

    • MimicJar@lemmy.worldM
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      11 hours ago

      What would make you interested?

      Or specifically which part do you find uninteresting?

      T’Challa, heir to the hidden but advanced kingdom of Wakanda, must step forward to lead his people into a new future and must confront a challenger from his country’s past.

      That’s the plot line of Black Panther.

      Political involvement in the Avengers’ affairs causes a rift between Captain America and Iron Man.

      That’s Captain America: Civil War.

      What are you expecting to read?

    • wjrii@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      Harrison Ford, or at least his cumulative body of work, is a goddamned national treasure, but the man is 82. Stop throwing money at him and encouraging him to leave Wyoming to do boring things. Besides, he might try to fly himself, and we as a country don’t need that kind of stress.

      Anyway, it’s so unrealistic. Why would America ever elect an octogenarian president?!?!?!

      • BestBouclettes@jlai.lu
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        15 hours ago

        Yeah and one who is secretly a traitor plotting for global instability. Man, these writers need a reality check.

    • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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      18 hours ago

      Oh boy, a secret global plot… the entire world in danger… Sounds so refreshing…
      The Falcon is an alright character, but he’s too much of an asshole to take him seriously as Capt America.

  • Flamekebab@piefed.social
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    19 hours ago

    I’d completely forgotten about that TV show. I watched all of it, so that’s rather telling.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      1 hour ago

      We could barely even remember the name of it.

      The wife insisted on calling it Wingman and Handjob.

      I just couldn’t get on board with the idea of a guy with a billion dollar set of equipment struggling to get pennies together to save the family boat business… Weren’t you billionaire Tony’s best mate? You seriously telling me he left you nothing?

    • geekwithsoul@lemm.ee
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      17 hours ago

      Isaiah Bradley was actually already in the TV show and there’s a clip of him in the trailer

        • geekwithsoul@lemm.ee
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          16 hours ago

          Ah, totally missed Joaquin in the TV show! Thanks!

          My own theory is that this movie is going to relate to the asterisk in “Thunderbolts*” and is leading up to Secret Avengers based on the timing of when they come out

            • geekwithsoul@lemm.ee
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              13 hours ago

              Source? I know that was a comic run but hadn’t seen any coverage on that in regards to the MCU. Plus, are there even “Avengers” to kill right now in the MCU?