In a surefire indicator of just how little confidence even the studio has in the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe entry, actor Giancarlo Esposito has confirmed that, with just a little over three months until its release, Captain America: Brave New World is headed back for another round of reshoots.
Esposito, who is set to appear in the film as the first-ever live-action incarnation of Serpent Society member Sidewinder, revealed Brave New World‘s forthcoming production plans during a November 7th speaking appearance at Penn State University.
At one point in the conversation, per a video recorded and shared to Twitter by user @Veno202, the actor took a moment to share his excitement towards his upcoming MCU debut, telling the crowd, “[Sidewinder] is a badass, and I’m so excited for this piece.”
“It’ll be out February 25th, and I love working with Anthony Mackie,” he continued, his given date for Brave New World‘s premiere ostensibly being an accidental portmanteau of its full theatrical date of February 14th, 2025 rather than any hard confirmation of its receiving another delay, ” He comes from the New York theater [scene], we knew each other did a few readings together, a few plays back in the day, so we have great synchronicity.”
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From there, Esposito turned to share some words of optimism to the young students in attendance, asserting, “And I’m really grateful and thankful to all of you.”
And it was here, in the ramp up to his anecdotal advice, that the actor revealed, despite being roughly three months from release, that Brave New World was still not ready to fly, exclaiming to fans
“The Captain America story, as much as it’s been great to be on set, to shoot it – I’m actually going back to do a little bit more. So excited! I get to put that costume on again, baby!,” he exclaimed, “but it all happened, out of fan casting.”
(And while irrelevant to this article’s overall topic of Brave New World, for those curious as to the rest of Esposito’s story, the actor went on to recall how the road to his joining the MCU began when “I was doing a comic con years ago, and someone asked me, you know, about Professor X.”
“I said, you know, ‘God, I love that character. I’d love to play Professor X,'” he continued. “And I said ‘Blow it up on social media! And so, it just grew – This is going back four-and-a-half-something years – it grew, it grew, it grew, it grew.” I wound up at the Emmy’s last year, and so I asked my manager, ‘Hey, do these guys at Marvel know that the fans want me to play Professor X? That that’s what the fans want! They laid it in my lap!? [These last two sentiments expressed in a humorous, ‘woe is me’ fashion]’ And he said ‘Oh, they’re aware. They’re aware.'”
“So we run into one of the honchos at the Emmy’s, and I say, ‘Oh, let’s go talk to him,” said Esposito. “And I go over and talk to him, and blahblahblahblah, and then word comes back that they’ve done Professor X and they would love to do something new, but they were very aware, and if they were gonna re-do it (and there’s been rumors that they may do that again) it won’t be the same as what we’ve seen, because they’ve seen Professor X for who he is.”
[At current, it’s unclear just what either Esposito or Marvel Studios meant by this confusingly-worded assertion regarding the mutant leader’s cinematic future.]
“But it all started with the fans,” the actor then reiterated. “So, I get this offer, I talk to them, and I wind up at San Diego Comic-Con, and I thank the fans, and I’m gonna thank you again tonight, because it was the power of your voices that planted this seed.”
“And what I said earlier – what you do today determines tomorrow – what you plant grows,” Esposito concluded. “So invest in yourselves, and think of yourselves as the roots of a plant, and you’re growing. And you plant the seeds of what you want, and then you share it with each other, or you share it with the universe, and believe it or not, it grows. So I give full credit to the fans, because it’s a total success story for me, because it’s something that I always wanted was to be in that universe, and it came to me, and it’s not Professor X – it’s even BETTER than Professor X!”)
This round of reshoots marks the second such ‘return to set’ for Brave New World, with its first having already taken place in May of this year.
Due reportedly to test screenings of the film’s initial cut receiving exceptionally poor reviews, these initial reshoots not only consisted of the standard post-production work seen in most Hollywood films, but also massive changes to the plot of Sam Wilson’s next adventure, including the removal of a fully-shot Serpent Society plot line, the addition of more action scenes, and the introduction of Esposito as Sidewinder.
Unfortunately for the film, per recent reports from October, the subsequent cut of Brave New World also bombed with test audiences.
To this end, while these reshoots have yet to be reported and Esposito was light on details, it seems safe to assume that this last-minute round of filming is being undertaken in order to try and get the fourth Captain America film into a ‘workable’ state.
However, at this point, one has to ask: Is there even any point in trying to do so?
After all, in addition to the fact that more people were excited for The Marvels to release than Brave New World, the extensive nature of the film’s first round of reshoots led to its budget reportedly ballooning by an additional “$75-$100 million“, to a rough total of $375 Million.
According to the standard ‘true film budget’ equation (which generally assumes that a film’s marketing budget is equal to its production budget), the upcoming MCU entry already needs around $750 million to even begin recouping its reported expenses. To add anything on top of that would only serve to push Marvel’s hopes of the film breaking even – or possibly, by some miracle, profiting – further into the realm of impossibility.
At current, barring any more delays (and hey, given the film’s history, anything could happen), Captain America: Brave New World is currently on track to land in theaters on February 14th, 2025.